If it were not for Lisa there would not be five current TRAJ issues with the publication of 41 fully open-access research articles and five editorials discussing a wide range of topics on theoretical Roman archaeology. TRAJ was her creation from convincing the TRAC standing committee of the importance of moving towards hosting an open-access journal to making contact with the Open Library of Humanities, convincing them of the value of hosting TRAJ. Her efforts have ensured that we now run a fully open-access journal with no author and no journal fees.
Lisa was an incredible advocate of diversity and inclusion, guaranteeing that these were woven into the canvas of TRAC and TRAJ policies. She was especially passionate about supporting young researchers, increasing the diversity of people engaging with archaeology, advocating for women in archaeology, as well as promoting innovative thinking and approaches to Roman archaeology. She was a contagious source of new ideas, constantly coming up with new networking strategies and initiatives to ensure the continuing success of TRAC and TRAJ. She was confident not only of the potential of TRAJ but also believed that it could play a small role in helping to improve the field of archaeology for both students and researchers.
(Roman) Archaeology was one of the main fires in her life, which was still bright and vivid when she joined us for TRAC in Split 2022. Upon stepping down from her editor-in-chief role, she expressed her desire to maintain a role with TRAJ. During conversations in Split, she was enthusiastic to return to TRAJ in an editorial capacity, already brainstorming new ways to ensure that TRAJ would continue to thrive despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the past five years, Lisa was the heart of TRAJ, ensuring that the editorial committee maintained their enthusiasm for the journal. She pushed us to continue to seek out new ground-breaking ideas being proposed by researchers and to try and convince more people to engage with TRAJ. The journal has lost a tremendous leader, but her passion for establishing its framework will ensure that it continues to succeed in the future.
Lisa, you will be greatly missed by the people who had the honour to work closely together with you in both TRAJ and TRAC and at the same time to be inspired by your way of thinking and dedication to people and innovative research. You will be equally missed by the past and current TRAC and TRAJ community, many of whom timidly sat in one of your TRAC sessions and saw you as a role model, talked with you about how to change Roman archaeology at a TRAC coffee break, crossed your path in a TRAC conference hall, or watched at your dance moves at a TRAC party which so clearly showcased your enthusiasm for life. TRAJ will always be a place to celebrate you, your achievements, the future ground-breaking work based on your work, your dedication to TRAJ, your passion for archaeology, your endurance, your fairness, and your joy of life.
We will make sure that your TRAJ legacy will continue and aim to continue to inspire the next generation of scholars.
‘Quando ti viene nostalgia non è mancanza. E’ presenza di persone, luoghi, emozioni che tornano a trovarti.’ (Erri De Luca, 2001, Montedidio)
Translation: ‘When you get nostalgic it’s not absence. It is the presence of people, places, and emotions that come back to visit you.’
Selected Contributions
Professor Andrew Gardner
Dr Lisa Lodwick was an outstanding Roman archaeologist and archaeobotanist, but far more than that, she was an active and effective builder of networks and communities within our field, and she was my friend. Her loss will be keenly felt across the areas she worked in, and among her colleagues in many institutions. Her energy was applied to numerous situations, but no more so than in her contributions to the TRAC community. I first met Lisa at a TRAC, in fact, at Leicester in 2015, and the following year we organised the inaugural TRAC workshop together, on practice theory, in London. Lisa was a terrific person to work with in organising any event, always on top of things and planning ahead, and always keen to ensure inclusivity and accessibility. She and I worked together on other events, most recently the planning for a day-conference that would help bring people back together after the disruption of the pandemic years, along with Natasha Harlow and Sadie Watson. That event happened in November 2022, very sadly just after Lisa passed away. At ‘Reconnecting Roman Britain’, everyone attending paid tribute to Lisa, and as a regular meeting going forward, hopefully, it is one of the many legacies that she will leave to our community.
Of course there are many other significant achievements. Her substantive contributions were very impressive, with her work on horticulture and agriculture in Roman Britain making really original contributions in a vital area of study, and of course her role in the Roman Rural Settlement Project publications helped to deliver one of the most important series of research outputs in the current century. She was an activist, too, always engaged with addressing inequalities of representation within the field and in its public-facing forms, such as Wikipedia pages. Her leadership in moving the publication of TRAC into the online TRAJ format will be discussed by other colleagues here, but in recent years Lisa was also very much involved with ongoing debates about Open Access issues as a member of the Britannia editorial committee, on which I also serve. As always, she was on top of the latest developments in this sphere and her advice and wisdom will be much missed. Lisa had a wonderful way of assembling and engaging in collaborations, quietly and unassumingly, but incredibly effectively. It is so sad that we will not have the chance to organise more things together or meet up at conferences, whether to debate the big issues or hit the conference party dancefloor. Her future career would have been full of immense contributions to our field, I have no doubt, but we can be grateful for everything she did for so many people in the time she had.
Dr. Sarah Scoppie
Like Andy and Tom, I first met Lisa at TRAC 2015 in Leicester, where I had just started my PhD. I was in absolute awe of her seemingly inexhaustible energy – and it feels immensely cruel to realise that this energy has been taken away from Lisa at such a young age. It was wonderful to meet her again this spring at TRAC in Split and see this spark in her eyes, her enthusiasm about returning to theoretical Roman archaeology and continuing with her amazing work – to know that cancer returned within weeks after us talking on this hill overlooking the palace of Diocletian and the coast is hard to believe. I shall always remember Lisa as this whirlwind of archaeological knowledge, as an enthusiastic and vocal advocate of diversity and inclusion, and the backbone of TRAJ. Lisa inspired so many and I hope that we will be able to continue with her work, her legacy, and thus share her passion for TRAC and TRAJ with the next generations.
Dr. Tom Derrick
I had the pleasure of getting to know Lisa from my involvement in organizing TRAC in 2015 in Leicester, and later on the TRAC Standing Committee from 2016 until 2019.
She was incredibly passionate about archaeology and her endless professionalism and passion for democratising the discipline ran through everything she did. Lisa was relentless in her desire to make sure that every element of TRAC’s activity was as ethical as it could be, and she had a ruthless commitment to making our discipline inclusive and accessible.
Minutes after my election to the Committee in 2016 in Rome, Lisa was already bouncing round ideas to launch an open-access journal. While myself and the rest of the Committee put many hours into the launch of TRAJ, it was Lisa that got us organised and got the project over the line. In short, the journal you are now reading would not have been possible without her determination and vast knowledge of open-access academic publishing. TRAJ is but one of the many long-lasting positive impacts on the field that she managed to achieve, in a tragically curtailed life. Her loss is deeply felt.
Dr Emily Hanscam
I first met Lisa in Rome, in the spring of 2016. I was at RAC/TRAC as part of a group from Durham, and we were celebrating having just won TRAC 2017 after what was (and probably still is!) the closest vote for the awarding of a TRAC conference. The meeting was full of energy, and Lisa was clearly in her element. Later, we walked to dinner together, trailing behind the rest of the TRAC committee. As she shared with me her plans for TRAC, for the new journal she was hoping to found, and some of the frustrations—and joys—that came with being part of the committee, I remember thinking how lucky I was to have found such an exceptional role model. I was only a year into my PhD, and while I was very happy at Durham, there were few other PhD students working on theoretical Roman topics and none were women. Enter Lisa Lodwick; talented, motivated, passionate about equity and inclusion, a thoughtful leader, and a very willing mentor. As I worked alongside Lisa on TRAC and then the first issue of TRAJ the sense of privilege never faded. She was exacting and always strove for excellence, but did not demand anything of others that she did not first require of herself. Because of Lisa, I learned about the importance of open-access publishing, the visibility of scholarship and female scholars, setting high standards and simultaneously working to tear down barriers within Roman archaeology. My career changed when I met Lisa, and I am certain that she had a similar impact on many others within and beyond Roman archaeology. My hope is that TRAC, TRAJ, Roman archaeology, and indeed the wider discipline will continue to grow and embrace the values that Dr Lisa Lodwick championed and that she knew we could achieve.
Dr. Francesca Mazzillii
I first met Lisa at TRAC 2017 in Durham soon after my election to the TRAC standing committee. She was excited about having another female member on the team and gave me a quick debrief, providing a clear and fair picture of TRAC, its current issues, and future directions, including her exciting new project, TRAJ. I felt overwhelmed to take the TRAC ordinary standing committee role, as there were no guidelines for this new role. Lisa made it very smooth by giving me the leadership of one of her projects, the TRAC Wikipedia Workshop while offering her full support. Soon after I was fully integrated with the TRAC team, helping develop Lisa’s vision, the first free open-access journal for young researchers and experts in Roman theoretical debates. Her energy and ideas were grandiose and contagious. Although TRAJ was her idea, it became a communal project, believing we were making a difference in the Roman archaeological community. I will never forget our Friday night meetings, Lisa was there coming up with great ideas for TRAC and TRAJ, while drinking a glass of wine. Her drive and ideas have inspired my work and gave me the strength to believe in my research, Lisa was there to cheer for me and celebrate my success. TRACs, conferences, and workshops in Cambridge and abroad were occasions to exchange ideas about future directions of Roman archaeology, support each other, and enjoy being part of a friendly community.
I want to remember her as an extremely successful Roman and Environmental Archaeologist and someone who was able to bridge the commercial and academic worlds. Her latest achievement was the prestigious position as an Environmental Lecturer at the University of Cambridge that she was eager to start.
A colleague and a friend full of life
Dr. Katherine A. Crawford
I first met Lisa in Rome during TRAC 2016. But it was not until I took on the role of chair for TRAC in 2019 that I really got to know her. Her mentorship was invaluable as I became chair of an organization that I previously only knew about from being a participant at the conferences. She was always willing to help answer my questions or offer suggestions, clearly passionate about wanting TRAC to succeed and improve. Upon joining the journal editorial committee her desire for ensuring the success of TRAJ became readily apparent. She was incredibly passionate about trying to convince people to submit a greater diversity of articles, encouraging us to reach out to scholars that could make an impact in the journal. Her commitment to the journal was particularly evident in the fact that most of our email communications occurred over the weekends, often the only time she had available to deal with the many time-consuming tasks of running the journal. It is only now that I’ve assumed the role of editor-in-chief, a role she seemed to effortlessly embody, that I realize just how much work she put into founding the journal and ensuring its lasting success. I can only hope to achieve a fraction of her success and ensure the continuation of TRAJ.
My final lunch with her in Split at the last TRAC conference was full of discussions about how TRAJ had been going since she stepped down from the editor-in-chief role to brainstorming ideas about positive directions for the journal in the future. She was so clearly excited to return to help with the journal as an editorial board member, although she was very happy to not be fully in charge anymore. Despite the challenges of overseeing the journal during the pandemic, her enthusiasm and support for how we had managed were energizing. I could not wait to have her re-join us and have her contagious energy back on the editorial board. It is with great sadness that her spark of passion will no longer be part of TRAJ’s future, but by upholding her values we will try our best to see that TRAJ thrives.
Competing Interests
The author has no competing interests to declare.