Barbara Borgers studied Archaeology and Art Sciences at various universities in Belgium and the United Kingdom and received her PhD from Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2014. Between 2014 and 2016, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen, and between 2019 and 2025, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna. As part of her MSCA project at the Department of Geosciences, she brings together the scientific community and heritage managers across Europe by advancing the study of ceramic artifacts through the reconstruction of social practices that shaped the lives of ancient craft communities.
Barbara’s research focuses on the cultural biography of ceramics—she examines how archaeological artifacts were produced, traded, used, and discarded. Her research aims to answer questions about knowledge transfer, social cohesion, and skill acquisition. More specifically, she focuses on the technological variability of ceramics, employing a multi- faceted archaeological scientific approach. She also examines the role these objects play in creating, preserving and displaying social identities in workshops, as well as in domestic, religious and funerary contexts.