Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls is a Professor of Holocaust Archaeology and Genocide Investigation. She is also the director of the Centre of Archaeology at the University of Huddersfield. Her research has led to new material and spatial understandings of the Holocaust and other genocides and contributed to the search of missing persons in and beyond conflict. 

Sturdy Colls has overseen archaeological surveys at more than 60 Holocaust sites across Europe, as well as locations linked to genocide and mass violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Namibia and Cyprus. In her book “Holocaust Archaeologies: Approaches and Future Directions” (2014), she highlighted the importance of ethical approaches to the investigation of Holocaust sites, particularly the recognition of the stipulations of Halacha (Jewish law) regarding the treatment of Jewish burials, and outlined findings that have inspired the emergence of the entire sub-field of Holocaust archaeology. 

Her forthcoming book “Finding Treblinka: Forensic and Archaeological Perspectives“, complements numerous published book chapters and articles by outlining the complete results of Sturdy Colls’ investigations at the Treblinka extermination and labor camps. These investigations, which were the first of their kind, uncovered the gas chambers, unmarked mass graves and personal belongings of victims. 

Sturdy Colls is also the co-author of “Forensic Approaches to Buried Remains” (2013), “Handbook on Missing Persons” (2015), “Adolf Island: The Nazi Occupation of Alderney” (2022) and a forthcoming monograph “The Material Culture of Difficult Histories” (2026). 

Her most recent work focuses on developing a new historical, archaeological and spatial account of the camps at Trawniki in Poland, as well as combining archaeology and the arts to explore material traces connected to the Srebrenica Genocide. 

By combining forensic archaeology, history, digital humanities and the arts, while simultaneously putting an emphasis on a wide range of ethical issues, Sturdy Colls has forged a unique approach to investigating and documenting genocide. She has developed state-of-the-art non-invasive methods of investigation, which have subsequently been adopted around the world, leading to greater respect for Jewish law with regard to burials and facilitating access to Holocaust sites that were previously off limits for archaeologists. 

Sturdy Colls earned her PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK. She previously held positions at the Staffordshire University and was the 2016 Fred and Maria Devinki Memorial Fellow at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. That same year, she was awarded the European Archaeological Heritage Prize for her contribution to contemporary conflict archaeology.