Meet Our New President: Professor Sarah Semple

Posted On: January 5th, 2026

Happy New Year to all our members!

I am delighted and honoured to have been elected as the new President of the Society for Medieval Archaeology. It is a tremendous privilege, and during my term of office I look forward to supporting the Society as it continues to grow its vibrant identity as the leading UK and international voice for our discipline. It is always exciting to receive a new issue of Medieval Archaeology, our inspiring journal, alongside the Society’s rich and informative newsletters that keep us all up to date with new research, projects, fieldwork, and discoveries. It has also been a pleasure to see the Society’s website, activities, and social media presence flourish in recent years. I would like to extend my thanks to the outgoing President, Oliver Creighton, for taking the Society from strength to strength.

I am excited about the opportunities ahead to widen the Society’s reach—expanding our activities, supporting student and professional membership, and enhancing our international profile. Our publications and events increasingly engage both UK and global audiences, and I hope to continue developing this inclusivity as we promote our subject to audiences in Britain and the wider world.

I joined the Society in the mid-1990s and was thrilled, as a relatively new lecturer, to be invited to join Council in the 2000s and then honoured to serve as Deputy Editor of Medieval Archaeology (2013–15) and then Honorary Editor (2015–18). It was an amazing opportunity to support the publication of some great new research from established and early career researchers, commercial archaeologists and international contributors, working with an outstanding editorial team to move the journal to two issues a year. Since my initial training at UCL, my research in medieval archaeology has centred on how archaeology and interdisciplinary evidence can illuminate past human interactions with both natural and human-shaped environments. I am particularly interested in the role of material remains in shaping early medieval identity and power. My work has ranged from examining the reuse of earlier monuments in early medieval funerary contexts, to exploring how the past informed political, administrative, and religious landscapes.

After moving to Durham University in 2006, and inspired by colleagues, students, and the wider region, my research has expanded to encompass early medieval art and architecture—particularly sculpture—as well as material culture, in Britain and the North Sea world. These interests underpin three current projects: field investigations at the early medieval royal palace of Yeavering, Northumberland, redefining its relationship to the prehistoric landscape; completion of the long-running Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture; and large-scale research into funerary archaeology – or necroscapes – in early political and religious contexts.

I am also pleased that the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, where I am still based, will continue its long-standing support for the Society by hosting the Medieval Archaeology Student Colloquium in 2026. Through this and the Society’s annual programme of events, I aim to work to ensure the Society remains a primary point of engagement for students, researchers, and practitioners across the discipline.

Sarah’s profile at Durham University: Professor Sarah Semple – Durham University