Dr. Laurel Harrison Breece

Dr. Laurel Harrison Breece received her MA and Ph.D. from the Interdepartmental Archaeology Program at UCLA. Dr. Breece’s master’s thesis focused on underwater archaeology and the silver collection from the sunken city of Port Royal, Jamaica. Her doctoral dissertation project in Natá, Panamá explored Spanish colonization. Dr. Breece has been an elected member of the Register of Professional Archaeologists since 1999 and has been a visiting associate professor at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA.

Dr. Breece is now a professor of anthropology and archaeology at Long Beach City College where her main focus is teaching terrestrial and underwater surveying technologies, and exploring such topics as, exploration, navigation, and colonization.

Dr. Breece has a terrestrial surveying program done in partnership with the Survey Department of the Port of Long Beach in which students gain hands-on experience using various surveying and mapping technologies. Dr. Breece is also developing an underwater survey program in conjunction with the LBCC Underwater Robotics Program in which students learn to build and pilot Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV’s) as a means of surveying for submerged cultural resources.