Shannon Lee Dawdy received a B.A. (1988) from Reed College, an M.A. (1994) from the College of William and Mary, and an M.A. (2000) and Ph.D. (2003) from the University of Michigan. Since 2004, she has been an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. She is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters, as well as co-editor of Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology (2005) and Dumont de Montigny: Regards sur le monde atlantique, 1715–1747 (2008).