CAA ESC Treasurer nominees 2026

Dear members of the CAA office,

I am writing to apply for the position of Treasurer of CAA International.
I have been a member of CAA since the early years of my PhD in 2023. After presenting posters and papers, I went on to organise and chair sessions on machine learning and AI at the 25th, 26th and 27th CAA conferences. In 2024, I helped found the French CAA chapter and organised two national symposia (2025 and 2026). Finally, in 2025, I co-founded the CAA Special Interest Group on Machine Learning with three other members. Through these experiences, I have come to know CAA’s strengths, its long-standing and newer members, and the challenges it faces as an international organisation.

Most relevant to this role, in 2025 I contributed to the travel bursary selection process. This gave me a first-hand view of how applications are assessed and how limited funds must be balanced against real needs. I would gladly continue this work within the Bursary Committee alongside the Bursary Officer.

I also bring practical experience as a treasurer. At Routes de l’Orient, a student association promoting research on the ancient Near East, I raised funding from public and private sources for conferences and workshops, and managed invoices and membership fees. At Monachus, I managed contracts and funding for archaeological excavations.

I share the goal of keeping CAA’s finances healthy while ensuring funds are allocated to bursaries. My experience organising symposia helps me understand how conferences generate income and costs, which is useful when forecasting the association’s revenue. The trial of multi-year memberships is an important opportunity to stabilise that income and support new initiatives without reducing bursaries, and I am keen to contribute to those discussions.

Having completed my PhD this summer, I now have the time to take on greater responsibility within CAA. My experience as a treasurer, my involvement in the bursary process and my knowledge of the community make me well placed to serve in this role.

Kinds regards,
Mathias Bellat.

Dear CAA Community,

My first CAA conference in Siena in 2015 felt like finding my peers. Instantly, I fell in love with the people, the familiarity, and the unique spirit of our association. Now, I wish to give something back by standing for Treasurer.

By profession, I am a Data Owner and Section Lead at the Archaeological Service in Switzerland, where I manage strategic projects and teams. Over the past decade, I have gained extensive experience in leadership, personnel management, and financial oversight. I am also a founding member and current President of the CAA Switzerland National Chapter.

You might say managing money is in my DNA: born and raised in Zurich, I bring precision, integrity, and a pragmatic approach to financial matters. I have served as Treasurer in several clubs previously, handling accounts, invoices, and budgets with care. I am comfortable with the responsibility of overseeing CAA’s finances, managing payment methods, and supporting the Bursary Committee to ensure funds reach those who need them most.

Beyond the numbers, I am a passionate advocate for data management. In my earlier years, I started in computer-based modelling in archaeology. When I am not working, you will likely find me enjoying a good movie, discussing the latest series, or following the cats in my neighbourhood.

I know many of you already; for those I have yet to meet, I promise a treasurer who is transparent and dedicated to our community’s future. I look forward to potentially serving on the ESC and supporting our association’s growth from 2027 onwards.

Merci für d’Uufmerksamkeit (Swiss German for “Thank you for your attention”)

I am standing for Treasurer because the role needs someone who finds the work straightforward, not burdensome. My first degree is in accounting, and I spent twelve years in financial administration. My daily routine involved accounts, budgets, payments, and reporting to external bodies. That is not usual in archaeology, and it is the substance of my application: managing bank accounts, processing invoices, and handling finance and administration are work I have done professionally, and I am familiar with the responsibility of holding an organisation’s money.

Most of my archaeological work has been in CAA’s field. In my last project, I built the research data infrastructure for a Roman settlement database of the Netherlands at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and presented it at CAA 2026 with Philip Verhagen and Mark Groenhuijzen, in the session on the reuse of digital archaeological archives. Before that, I designed the shared ontology for the Metatool project at TU Delft, coordinating with colleagues at the University of Sussex and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and presented that work at the EAA in Rome. I hold master’s degrees in archaeological techniques and in geo-information science, and I have excavated in Portugal and Sicily.

I am based in the Netherlands, which would also streamline the handover and the registration.

On the wider work of the Executive Steering Committee, I would be a careful rather than a loud member. The bursaries interest me in particular, the funds that let people attend who otherwise could not: I have been working as a freelancer for a while and can relate to income instability. Beyond that, my aim would be to keep the financial side running quietly enough that the rest of the committee can concentrate on everything else.

Dear members of the CAA community,

It would be my honour to serve on the Executive Steering Committee (ESC) of CAA International as Treasurer. I have been an active member of CAA since 2014. I have regularly attended the international conference, organised sessions, and served in the Review College for eight years. I was a founding member of the special interest groups on scientific scripting languages (2018–present) and chronological modelling (2025–present), and serve on the Danish national chapter’s steering committee. I have been responsible for multi-currency budgets of tens of thousands of euros as a conference organiser and field director, and balance the long-term budget of a scholarly organisation as lead administrator of archaeo.social. I would serve the full term, keep accounts updated and reported to the membership at the annual general meeting.

If elected, I would also proactively investigate how the international organisation’s resources can be best used to meet its goals. I am keenly aware that the organisation’s growing size and global reach, while welcome, have significantly increased the cost of attending the international conference (Figure 1) and its climate impact. This challenges the organisation’s well-earned reputation as an accessible and inclusive scholarly environment, especially for early career researchers. I would work with other ESC members to bring proposals to the membership that mitigate these trends; for example by making part of the international organisation’s budget available to national chapters and special interest groups for smaller-scale events, or using central funds to ensure the international conference can be attended virtually.

CAA opened the door to digital archaeology for me, as it has for many others. As Treasurer, I would work to keep it open and affordable, balancing global reach with broad accessibility.

Yours faithfully,
Joe Roe

Assistant professor, Near Eastern archaeology
University of Copenhagen
https://joeroe.io

I would like to stand for the position of Treasurer on the CAA Executive Steering Committee because I believe I can bring together financial experience, organisational commitment, and a strong engagement with the archaeological community.

I am currently Treasurer of the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (SPMA), where I am responsible for monitoring the Society’s finances, preparing financial reports, overseeing payments, and contributing to decisions concerning budgets, grants, events, and the long-term financial sustainability of the organisation. This role has given me direct experience of the practical and strategic responsibilities involved in managing the finances of an international archaeological society.

I am also a member of the CAA Scientific Committee, and therefore already have a close understanding of the organisation, its community, and the importance of maintaining transparent and effective structures that support its activities, particularly its annual conference and bursary programme.

Before becoming an archaeologist, I worked as an engineer, where part of my professional responsibilities involved managing annual budgets exceeding one million euros. This experience gave me an important background in financial planning and budget control.

My desire to work as a treasurer in CAA is not simply to act in an administrative position, but  to actively contribute to the development of the CAA community, by guaranteeing a careful and transparent financial management.