For Shane Rice, a 26-year-old U.S. Marine Corps veteran, the path from military service to academia was anything but straightforward. Initially drawn to environmental engineering when he arrived at Harvard University from Warrenton, Virginia, Rice soon realized the discipline didn’t align with his interests or strengths. What followed was a period of exploration, one that led him through conversations with various department heads and ultimately into a professor’s office lined with Cold War-era reconnaissance imagery. It was there, surrounded by declassified U2 and CORONA aerial photographs, that Rice found a new direction in archaeology—a field that would allow him to merge his military background with academic inquiry.

This intersection of past and present, technology and memory, became central to Rice’s academic journey. His story, which unfolded against the backdrop of Harvard’s 374th Commencement, offers a compelling look at how veterans can bring unique perspectives to the humanities. It also highlights the evolving role of satellite imagery in archaeological research, especially in regions marked by both ancient and recent conflict.

Rice’s military experience as a mortarman had already familiarized him with maps and satellite imagery, tools that would soon become instrumental in his academic work. His interest was piqued by Professor Jason Ur’s introductory course, “Can We Know Our Past?”—a class that helped him reconcile his dedication to public service with a newfound passion for antiquities and data analysis. Ur, the Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology, later remarked that Rice wrote “very eloquently” about how archaeology helped him navigate the transition from military life to academia.

What began as classroom curiosity quickly evolved into fieldwork. Ur’s research in the Kurdistan Region of Northern Iraq, using declassified satellite imagery to locate ancient settlements and evidence of historical atrocities, resonated deeply with Rice. He became one of the rare undergraduates to join Ur’s field team in the semi-autonomous region, contributing to a project that not only aimed to uncover traces of the Neo-Assyrian Empire but also to document the scars left by more recent violence.

In particular, Rice focused on the Anfal campaign of the late 1980s, during which the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein destroyed hundreds of Kurdish villages and forcibly relocated thousands of people. While the use of chemical weapons has often dominated public discourse around this period, Rice’s work brought attention to the widespread demolition of rural communities—a story that, as Ur noted, mirrored the forced deportations described in ancient Assyrian texts and the Hebrew Bible.

Rice’s research involved comparing declassified KH-9 Hexagon satellite images from June 1980 with modern commercial imagery. This allowed him to identify the remnants of villages that had been wiped from the map. In some cases, the only visible trace was the faint outline of a building’s four walls. In others, cultivated fields or new construction had overtaken the original sites. One particularly striking discovery was a tightly gridded refugee complex, or mujamma’a, located 25 kilometers south of Erbil. The complex matched descriptions in a 1993 Human Rights Watch report, offering rare primary-source evidence of a site that had previously existed only in oral tradition.

“These sites have existed purely in oral tradition and memory,” Rice explained. “And here we have primary-source evidence of one of these sites that thousands of individuals and families were moved through.” I found this detail striking—it underscores the power of archaeological methods to validate lived experiences and preserve histories that might otherwise be lost.

Rice’s commitment to the project extended beyond fieldwork. Back in Cambridge, he enrolled in Ur’s graduate-level course on archaeological applications of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and began mining government databases for additional satellite imagery. His goal was to build a comprehensive picture of the 3,000-square-kilometer survey area, using data to trace both ancient settlement patterns and modern destruction.

His work not only enriched academic understanding of the region’s past but also served as a poignant reminder of how recent events can become part of the archaeological record. “We don’t think of the 1980s as being terribly archaeological,” Ur said. “But this was the same tragic story told 3,000 years after the Assyrians. And it really needed some dedicated work.”

Rice’s story is also a testament to the value of veteran support programs like the Warrior-Scholar Project, which helped him transition into college life. His discipline and sense of responsibility, honed during three military deployments, made him a trusted member of Ur’s team—so much so that Ur emphasized the importance of choosing his field team carefully, given their role as informal ambassadors of American diplomacy.

Though Rice had once considered focusing on nomadic pastoralists—he even spent time with reindeer herders in northern Mongolia—he ultimately found greater urgency in documenting the Kurdish villages. “They’re racing against the clock with this project,” he said, referring to the pressures of urban development and sprawl threatening to erase these sites permanently.

Now preparing to begin studies at Cornell Law School, Rice leaves behind a body of undergraduate research that bridges archaeology, history, and human rights. His work demonstrates how satellite imagery and GIS technology can illuminate not just ancient civilizations but also the enduring consequences of modern conflict. Through careful analysis and a deep respect for the communities affected, Rice has shown how the tools of archaeology can serve both scholarly inquiry and social memory.

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