Theresa Schober is Board Member of the ARCO-OP. Schober is Principal Investigator for ARCO-OP’s Getting to the Bottom of Mount Elizabeth. Schober’s professional and research interests are wide ranging, including heritage resource development and management, public education in archaeology, hunter-gatherer adaptations to coastal ecosystems, changing patterns of diet and health with culture contact, and historic preservation. Originally from western Canada, Schober has been in south Florida since 1998, conducting archaeological excavations and documenting a variety of south Florida shell mounds, shell middens, and mortuary sites.
Some of her research has focused on the settlement and use of the Estero Bay estuarine system on Florida’s Gulf coast by the Calusa Indians. This includes extensive investigations into how – and how quickly – mound sites were constructed. She directed the restoration and exhibit development at Mound House and Newton Park on Fort Myers Beach, securing $4 million for initiatives concerning educational, exhibit, and historic preservation issues. She served as President of the Florida Anthropological Society from 2015 to 2017, she is a member of the Lee County Historic Preservation Board, and project director for a two-year programming partnership between the Lee Trust for Historic Preservation and the Florida Humanities Council exploring representations of the past entitled, Making History Memorable.
Schober won a President’s Award from the Florida Anthropological Society in 2014 for public archaeology and three awards from the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation for education media and adaptive reuse of historic structures. Schober remains an advisory board member to the Florida Council for History Education.
Most recently, Schober recieved the Ripley P. Bullen Award in 2019 (https://fasweb.org/ripley-bullen-award/).