Aaron Kao

Research Interest
Archaeology of the Maritime Cultural Landscape

As a scholarship recipient, Aaron graduated with a BA (Distinction) in Fine Arts from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2003 and a MSt (Distinction) in Archaeology from the University of Oxford in 2021. He joined the Archaeology Unit in 2015 as a Research Officer after spending nearly a decade as a volunteer and has taken part in many excavations such as the historical sites of the National Gallery Singapore, the Victoria Concert Hall and the Empress Place as well as overseas projects in Cambodia, Myanmar and Indonesia. He co-directed the NSC Trawas Archaeology/Art History Field School in East Java in 2018. Apart from doing fieldwork, Aaron applies his fine art skills as an illustrator for the Archaeology Unit. His research projects include, but are not limited to earthenware production and distribution, island and coastal archaeology, and battlefield archaeology. Of particular interest to Aaron are the coastscapes and maritime small worlds that animated the archipelagic region.