Board of Directors
James B. Langford
James B. Langford serves as president of the Foundation, an organization he created in 1987 to promote the conservation of Native American cultural resources and related Indigenous lands. As president of the Society for Georgia Archaeology in the early 1990s, he worked closely with multiple tribal groups to author two landmark pieces of legislation that protect human remains and culturally significant sites in Georgia. His legislation also created the Georgia Council on American Indian Concerns. He is also a past president of the Georgia Council of Professional Archaeologists.
Mr. Langford, a frequent lecturer about the early inhabitants of Georgia, is the author and co-author of academic research related to the Mississippian period and early Spanish contact in Georgia. His work on Mississippian period archaeology and ceramics of Northwest Georgia, co-authored with Dr. David Hally, has been used for more than 30 years as the definitive research and laboratory ceramics guide for professional archaeologists and the general public. His other published work focuses on the 16th Century. He often serves as a consultant to cultural resource management (CRM) firms on matters related to human remains, ceramic analysis and public policy.
Mr. Langford has a long career in non-profit and public service projects. He has been appointed by five Georgia governors to serve on seven State of Georgia boards and study commissions related to historic preservation, history education, history museums, archaeology and environmental stewardship. In his position on the Georgia Board of Natural Resources, he was the principal negotiator for acquiring and preserving the Resaca Battlefield site – the first battle of the Sherman Atlanta Campaign of 1864.
From 2004-2007, Mr. Langford served as Georgia State Director of the Trust for Public Land, the national non-profit organization that creates parks and preserves open space for public use. At TPL, he led the effort to design the connected park and greenspace system of the Atlanta BeltLine, and he directed the acquisition of more than $45 million of land converted from commercial and industrial uses into new BeltLine parkland. The BeltLine continues to evolve and transform the City of Atlanta.
A native of Calhoun, Georgia, Mr. Langford earned his undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School. In his business career, he was a co-founder of Harbinger Corporation, a successful high-technology public company.
Dr. David J. Hally
As professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of Georgia, Dr. Hally maintains an active presence in archaeological research in the southeastern United States. His published work provides substantial insight into the Mississippian period cultures of the Southeast, particularly in the period just before and at the moment of European contact.
Dr. Hally began his career path as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College where he was one of the first two students to graduate with a degree in anthropology. He later earned his master’s and PhD degrees at Harvard University. His dissertation focused on his research in the Tensas Basin in northeastern Louisiana during the early 1960s.
The University of Georgia hired Dr. Hally as an assistant professor in 1967, and he quickly became deeply involved in archaeological research in Northwest Georgia – in the Coosawattee and Coosa River Valleys. One of his most important research projects focused on the King site, where he worked in 1974 and again from 1992 to 1993. His book King: The Social Archaeology of a Late Mississippian Town in Northwestern Georgia is considered the most complete study of Indigenous archaeology for the Late Mississippian period.
In general, Dr. Hally’s work most often pertains to Mississippian life in chiefdoms of the southeastern United States and the pottery associated with these chiefdoms. His multiple publications include Pottery Form and Function in American Antiquity published in 1986, and other papers describing chiefdoms published separately in 1993 and 1996.
Dr. John Worth
As professor of anthropology at the University of West Florida, Dr. Worth teaches historical archaeology, historical research methods, Southeastern Indigenous cultures, and field and laboratory methods in archaeology.
From his early beginnings as a high school volunteer at an archaeological field school to being named the lead site investigator for one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the United States, Dr. Worth is still motivated by the thrill of discovering new insights about the past.
One of the foremost experts on Spanish colonial history, he is the principal investigator for the archaeological site of the Tristan de Luna settlement- the oldest established multi-year European settlement in the United States – discovered in 2015 in a developed neighborhood in Pensacola, Florida.
Dr. Worth, an ethnohistorian who has spent 25 years working with original Spanish documents, is the author of three noteworthy books that intertwine research with historical and archaeological investigations. One of those, “The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida”, studies the assimilation and eventual destruction of the indigenous Timucuan societies of interior Spanish Florida in the vicinity of St. Augustine, Florida. In 1999, this book earned the Florida Historical Association’s Rembert Patrick Award for the best scholarly boon on Florida history.
In addition to his book publications, Dr. Worth has written more than 150 professional and lay publications and presented papers. He has served on the councils of the multiple archaeological associations including the Georgia National Register Review Board and the Society for Georgia Archaeology.
Prior to his arrival at UWF in 2007, Dr. Worth spent 15 years in public archaeology administration in Georgia and Florida including three years in Calhoun, Georgia with the Coosawattee Foundation as head of its public archaeology and education programs. During his tenure in Calhoun, the Foundation taught more than 20,000 students and adults in field and classroom programs – the largest reach of any such educational program in the United States during that period.
Dr. Worth earned his undergraduate and master’s anthropology degrees at the University of Georgia and his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Florida.
Dr. Maureen Meyers
Serving as Senior Archaeologist at the cultural resource management firm of New South Associates, Dr. Meyers brings to the Coosawattee Foundation more than three decades of experience in Southeastern archaeology as a professor, researcher and policy expert. Her work record spans several states including Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, Mississippi, Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
Specific focus areas of her expertise include Mississippian Period settlement patterns and ceramics, frontier chiefdoms in southwestern Virginia, ceramic analyses, and Contact-period Indigenous groups in Virginia and South Carolina. In broader policy contexts, Dr. Meyers is known for her work documenting and combatting sexual harassment in archaeology, disability issues in archaeology, and field safety, especially as it relates to nineteenth century arsenic embalming.
Dr. Meyers has also worked with museum collections, including at the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Calvin Brown collections at the University of Mississippi. She has extensive experience in Section 106 projects in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast regions and has conducted projects on behalf of numerous state and federal agencies including the Virginia Department of Transportation, various military installations, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Savannah River Site, and Dominion Power.
Dr. Meyers earned all of her higher education degrees in anthropology: her undergraduate degree from Radford University in Virginia, her M.A. from the University of Georgia and her Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky.
She is the author of two edited volumes and multiple articles in regional and national journals. She is the past President of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC), and she serves as Advisor to the NSF-funded study on sexual harassment in archaeology.
Jessica Parks
Jessica Parks is a Member of the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kator, Parks, Weiser & Wright, P.L.L.C. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Parks served as a Senate-confirmed Presidential appointee on the three-member U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). First appointed by President George H. W. Bush and later named Vice Chair of the Board by President Bill Clinton, Ms. Parks decided thousands of cases, setting precedent for the two million Federal employees and managers that constitute the nation’s largest employer, the federal government.
At the firm, Ms. Parks has represented federal employees and agencies before federal courts and administrative forums in wrongful terminations, whistleblower cases and discrimination actions. Her work record also includes representing federal employees of the FBI and NASA in class actions based on discrimination. Ms. Parks is admitted to the bar in North Carolina, and her practice is limited to federal courts and agencies.
Throughout her legal career, Ms. Parks has delivered over a hundred speeches and educational presentations on topics in employment disputes with an emphasis on litigation prevention and the benefits of mediated dispute resolution. Her service includes an appointment as a member of the advisory committee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and as a member of the National Council for the Federal Bar Association. She is past President of Executive Women in Government, serving on their Board for several years.
A Tulane University undergraduate, she earned a cum laude degree in Anthropology and completed an honors thesis that explored the historical racial classifications of the Houma Indians. Ms. Parks also worked two field seasons as an archaeologist at Mississippian and Hopewell culture archaeological excavations in North Georgia. Later, she earned her JD degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law where she was a George Caldwell Taylor Memorial Scholar.
Ms. Parks currently lives in Wilmington, N.C. where she is active in organizations that support environmental and conservation efforts. As a Coastal Ambassador for the North Carolina Coastal Federation (NCCF), she handles special projects related to marsh restoration, oyster reef replenishment and water quality. She is also an active member of Cape Fear River Watch, maintaining an ongoing interest in PFAS litigation to improve the water quality of the Cape Fear River.