Dr. Alicia Odewale

- African Diaspora Archaeologist
- Professor of Practice, Director of Undergraduate Studies
- African American Studies
- University of Houston
- Executive Director, Archaeology Rewritten
As an African Diaspora Archaeologist with a background in Restorative Justice, Antiracist, Black Feminist, and Community-centered Archaeology, Dr. Odewale researches sites of African heritage in the US and Caribbean region. She also leads the archaeological and educational consulting firm, Archaeology Rewritten and uses her role as a National Geographic Explorer to share with people around the world the many ways that both tangible and intangible Black heritage can be observed from the natural world using maps, objects, historic structures, oral histories, archival records, sacred landscapes and even trees. In the field, she is the co-director of the research project, Mapping Historical Trauma in Tulsa from 1921-2021, which uses archaeology to understand more about the survivance of Greenwood and Black community resilience after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Paired with this ongoing research project is an accompanying field school offering free training in archaeological survey and mapping plus paid internships for students who reside in Oklahoma through National Geographic. As an outcropping of her work in Greenwood, beginning in January 2025, Dr. Odewale will launch “The Black Heritage Tree Project” to document and map spirit trees that exist around the world that have stood as silent witnesses to centuries of Black history at historic sites but are under constant threat of destruction.
When she is not in the field, Dr. Odewale enjoys teaching and mentoring students at all levels, from elementary to PhD. Hailing from a long line of educators, she uses archaeology both inside and outside of the classroom as a lens to view but also change history. Currently she teaches both online and in-person at the University of Houston in African American Studies, blending her love of African Diaspora studies, anthropology, and history. She is also a lead instructor for the Black History Saturdays program, working alongside a coalition of educators to ensure Black History is taught in Oklahoma despite the legislative removal of culturally informed lessons from our school curriculums. Through her work with National Geographic Society, Nat Geo’s Explorer Classroom, the Oklahoma Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program (OSLEP), University of Houston, Disney Parks, and HBCUs across the country, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses while sharing Greenwood’s story and her journey to becoming an archaeologist with students around the world. Now thanks to multiple grants from National Geographic Society, her and her co-director are launching the first archaeology curriculum in Greenwood designed to blend lessons of archaeology, history, genealogy, and archival research and led by archaeologists and descendants local to the community.
As a Speaker for National Geographic LIVE and Lead Tulsa Storyteller for 2892 Miles to Go: Geographic Walk for Justice, Dr. Odewale continues to share the power of archaeology and Black community resilience through her National Geographic Live show “Black Wall Street: Stories of Resilience”, as well as an ongoing partnership with HBCUs and the Disney on the Yard program. Leading up to this national speaking tour, she also starred in the Emmy Award winning documentary, “Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street”, now streaming on HBO Max and CNNGo. Her work with National Geographic, 2892, film makers, and other media outlets like ABCs Good Morning America 3 and NPR’s All Things Considered provide an opportunity for her to go beyond the classroom and traditional academic publications to share her work in new and innovative ways with the world.
Dr. Odewale continues to be a fierce advocate for the inclusion of archaeology in the classroom and in the history of Black heritage in Oklahoma, Texas, and the US Virgin Islands, while pushing for increased diversity in academia and across the field of archaeology. She is both a living descendant of a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, a historically Black high school created during Oklahoma’s Jim Crow era and one of the few structures that survived the attack on Greenwood in 1921.
Through her role as a board member for the Society for Historical Archaeology and the Nat Geo Oklahoma Advisory Council, president elect for the Society of Black Archaeologists, and leader of the non-profit organization, The Greenwood Diaspora Project, she now works alongside a consortium of scholars working to digitally bring together the scattered archival collections related to the history of Greenwood and other All-Black Towns in Oklahoma. Sharing a mission to reconnect families across the Greenwood Diaspora back to their roots in Oklahoma.
Her research has received awards and support from the American Anthropological Association, the Society for American Archaeology, the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, and the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS), The Graduate Diversity and Inclusion Coalition, and most recently earned her the John L. Cotter Award from the Society for Historical Archaeology.