Sara L. Juengst awarded the Society for American Archaeology’s 2025 Presidential Recognition Award

Sara L. Juengst, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology, has been awarded a 2025 Presidential Recognition Award from the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) alongside Matthew Velasco, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology at Cornell University. 

Juengst is an anthropological bioarchaeologist specializing in South American archaeology, primarily focused on Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. She joined UNC Charlotte in 2016, and is the graduate director of the M.A. in Anthropology program. 

“Dr. Juengst’s Presidential Award is an important recognition for a scholar who is not just a brilliant researcher, but who also initiates and contributes to important conversations around ethics,” said Nicole D. Peterson, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology.

“It is easy to take a stand about something, but it is quite another thing to create spaces where controversial issues can be discussed while recognizing different perspectives, including those of community members,” she said. “This skill has been valuable for Dr. Juengst’s research, teaching and service, and I’m thrilled that she is being recognized for this kind of contribution to the discipline.”

Juengst and Velasco were honored at the SAA’s 2025 annual meeting which took place in Denver, Colorado. Juengst co-chaired the 2025 Annual Meeting Program Committee with Christopher B. Wolff, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Albany. 

The meeting program states that Juengst and Velasco received the award “for their outstanding service to the Society for American Archaeology as co-chairs of the Bioarchaeology Interest Group, for providing essential ethical consulting to the SAA Board, and for co-organizing the 2025 Presidential Opening Session at the annual meeting.”

“It was a delight to receive this award. Working with my co-chair Matt Velasco to organize the SAA Presidential Session was such a productive and enjoyable experience and it has led to many on-going conversations about ethics, human remains, and Latin America,” Juengst said. “Having the SAA recognize the value of this work is encouraging as we continue these conversations.”

The topic for the Presidential Opening Session was “Ethics of Display and Curation of Human Remains Outside of North America” and the session addressed critical issues surrounding attitudes of descendant and local communities in Latin America on archaeology and excavation of human skeletons.

“A potentially controversial subject, the session featured voices of scholars from Latin America and assessed the application of North American ethical standards to these different regions,” said Juengst. “The session was particularly successful as the presenters did not always agree but showed the importance of nuanced communication and trusting, long-term relationships between archaeologist and community.”

Juengst also presented a poster in the meeting’s general poster session, titled “Evidence for Early Cacao Use at the Valdivia Site of Buen Suceso, Ecuador (3710–3034 cal BC).” The research focused on “Ancient DNA Analysis in the Americas,” and was conducted alongside Guy S. Duke and Sarah M. Rowe, both associate professors of anthropology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

SAA award recipients are selected by individual award committees made up of member volunteers. Presidential Recognition Awards are bestowed by the president of the SAA to honor exemplary service to the Society.

Juengst obtained a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Anthropology and a B.A. from Vanderbilt University’s Department of Anthropology. She previously taught at Appalachian State University, UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Greensboro.

In addition to numerous scholarly articles, Juengst is the author of the book “Cooperation and Hierarchy in Ancient Bolivia: Building Community with the Body” (Routledge, 2023). 

Also awarded this year, Juengst is the recipient of the Department of Anthropology’s 2025 Chair’s Distinguished Leadership Award, a 2025 National Science Foundation Collaborative Senior Archaeology Grant (Principal Investigator), a 2025 UNC Charlotte Faculty Research Grant (Principal Investigator), a 2025 Community, Heritage and the Arts (CHArt) Small Grant (Principal Investigator), and 2025 Women + Girls Research Alliance Seed Funding (co-Principal Investigator alongside Ché Abdullah).

Images courtesy of Sara Juengst.