Equality & Human Rights Leadership – Policy, Campaigns & Research
In April 2025, I was honoured to attend and speak at #BHIVA25 this week at the National AIDS Trust and HIV Outcomes session on the future of HIV services in the UK. Our session explored what the future of HIV services in the UK could and should look like. We focused not just on viral… Continue reading On the future of HIV services and the key role of communities: my contributions at the British HIV Association Conference – BHIVA25.
I'm absolutely thrilled, and genuinely humbled, to share that I've been nominated for the "Positive Role Model Award for LGBT" at the National Diversity Awards 2025!Being recognised alongside such incredible individuals who tirelessly champion human rights, inclusion, equality, and social change is both inspiring and deeply moving. This nomination isn't just about me. It's a… Continue reading My Nomination for the National Diversity Awards 2025: thank you!
Three and a half months in, and 2025 has already been an exhilarating blend of meaningful professional and personal achievements, muddy gardening boots, new friendships, and lovely moments with family and community. Back in December, I shared my ambitious roadmap for the year - spanning karate milestones, leadership roles, advocacy campaigns, and personal development goals.… Continue reading 2025 Quarter 1 Progress Update – Black belts, new job, cherry blossoms, and 100kg stones: reflections from January to March.ย
This year, I completed my 2024 reading challenge and, out of 20+ books, I've selected seven impactful books that reshaped my thinking and actions in meaningful ways. Each one left me with a specific idea or lesson that Iโve carried forward. Hereโs a quick summary of each book and the one thing that stuck with… Continue reading My 2024 Book Recommendations on Leadership & Self Improvement: 7 Lessons
Introduction As 2025 approaches, Iโve been reflecting in a previous Blog post on my 2024 - a year of falling, rising, and personal growth. Professionally, I led impactful initiatives like the LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales, the Stop HIV Stigma and Wales HIV Testing Week campaigns, while continuing my advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights and HIV-related… Continue reading Looking Ahead: My resolutions and ambitions for 2025
As 2024 comes to a close, Iโve been reflecting on a year filled with purpose, progress, and personal growth. It has been a year working on transformative projects, deepening connections, and learning valuable lessons. Looking back, six key things stand out, each representing the milestones Iโm proud of and foundations for future growth. The Ceccarelli… Continue reading My 2024 Year in Review: Six areas of achievements and growth
Working on the LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales has been one of the most meaningful experiences in my career. The Plan focuses on creating a more inclusive and equitable society for LGBTQ+ individuals in Wales, tackling key issues such as discrimination, healthcare access, and representation in education.In my role, I worked closely with Welsh Ministers… Continue reading Advancing Equality: My Work on the LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales
I am incredibly honoured to be included in the Pinc List 2024 as one of Walesโ most influential LGBTQ+ people - for the fourth year in a row! ๐ณ๏ธโ๐ To be named alongside so many remarkable LGBTQ+ leaders is both humbling and inspiring. As a gay immigrant here in Wales, this recognition carries a profound… Continue reading Proud to Be Included in the Pinc List 2024
Knowledge-scapes - Julia Montes-Landa, Friederike Jรผrcke and Alessandro Ceccarelli The ARC volume 35.2 on โknowledge-scapesโ introduces the concept, its components and its application in archaeology. The origins, development and use of knowledge-scapes in the fields of cognitive theory and archaeology are explored and contextualized within current archaeological thinking. Practical approaches to the study of knowledge-scapes… Continue reading PUBLISHED: Knowledge-scapes (ARC volume 35.2)
Guru Kumhar Sikh Kumbh Hai, Gadh Gadh Kadhe KhotAntar Hath Sahar De, Bahar Bahe Chot "The mentor is the potter, the student is the (unfired) pot, the mentor gives shape and cures the flaws with care, always protecting with the palm from inside, while beating the pot from outside" (Kabir, 15th century, Varanasi, India). Acknowledgements… Continue reading Acknowledgements: PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge
Presentation for the event "A conversation with LGBTQ+ students and their views on the importance of joining an inclusive employer"Keynote: Alessandro Ceccarelli,ย President and Chair at Cambridge University Graduate Union.Date & Time: Jun 25, 2020 1:00pm - 2:00pm GMT+1 Ceccarelli_LGBT_inclusive_employersDownload Event organised by mygwork. Link: https://www.mygwork.com/en/my-g-events/a-conversation-lgbtq-students-and-their-views-on-the-importance-of-joining-an-inclusive-employer
The original article was published on WonkHE here.Postgraduate students โ in particular Masterโs students โ are at the epicentre of the financial crisis as universities respond to Covid-19. Despite the terrible circumstances that prospective and returning students have found themselves in, all universities are still currently planning to charge full fees for next term, even… Continue reading Masterโs students are owed deferrals and refunds – on WonkHE.
The original article was published on WonkHE here. Funding for all postgraduate students needs to be guaranteed during the COVID pandemic, and alreadyย over 1,300 research studentsย agree. Postgraduate students are facing major disruption due to the pandemic, with almost all laboratories and libraries closed, and many researchers unable to continue work. Now in an open letter to the… Continue reading Covid-19: Wonโt somebody think of the postgraduate research students? – on WonkHE
(The original articles was written for and published by the Cambridge University Graduate Union. Link here) The following short article provides an outline on the current understanding of Brexit and its implications for students, as well as guidelines and advices for the next months. What does Brexit mean ? The term is an amalgamation of… Continue reading Brexit, what does it mean for students? Advice and Analysis.
Alessandro Ceccarelli, University of Cambridge(original article available here) โOur colleagues make homophobic jokes at meetings, but nobody really says anything - they are just jokes! We do not talk about gender and sexuality at work. People do not talk about their sexuality all the time, why should we?โ Comments like these welcomed me when I arrived… Continue reading Being an LGBTQ+ grad student and researcher in Cambridge: a journey to become a role model.
The original Blog Post can be found at the following link: https://www.magd.cam.ac.uk/news/archaeological-research-in-india For my PhD research, under the supervision of Dr Cameron Petrie, Prof Charly French and Dr Patrick Quinn, I am working on producers, crafts and technologies of the Indus Civilisation (2500โ1900 BC) in northwest India. Simply put, I spend a lot of time… Continue reading Archaeological Research in India : From Cambridge to the Indus Civilisation
Hi again โ Alessandro here.ย After spending 4 months in India, studying ancient ceramic artefacts and working on the excavation at Lohari Ragho (link), Haryana, I am finally back in Cambridge, with plenty of samples. As mentioned in a previous blogpost (link), I spent several weeks at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, looking at cultural material from a few Indus sites. However, I also had the chance to leave the laboratory and take a break from Bronze Age people, and talk to modern communities of crafters โ more specifically traditional potters โย who live in small-size villages in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, North Western India.
My ethnographic, or ethno-technological, research is helping me think about archaeological questions and problems related to issues of rural ceramic production and regional networks of crafters. There are many aspects of ancient ceramic industries in South Asia that can benefit from researchโฆ
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Hi again โ it is Alessandro. I am currently writing from India, more specifically from Varanasi, an exceptional city in Uttar Pradesh, Northern India.
You might say, โWait a second โ there is no Indus settlement in Varanasi! What are you doing there?โ The answer is simple: I am studying ceramic artefacts โ of course! โ at one of the largest universities of India and Asia. For a few months, I have been working at BHU, Banaras Hindu University, where archives of excavations undertaken by the Land, Water and Settlement project (see here) and TwoRains project (see here) are kept.
Sunset by the Ganges, Varanasi (5:15am)
In the first part of this blog post, I would like to introduce you to the fascinating location that is hosting me (the โCity of Godsโ); then, I will take you back to the Indus Civilisation, providing an overview of my workโฆ
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Hi again โ it is Alessandro, your friendly neighbourhood ceramic specialist.
In the last few weeks, I have been busy re-firing some archaeological ceramics in a furnace at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. You might ask โWhy do you put ancient pottery in an oven?โ Although it is a relatively relaxing activity, there are reasons why we undertake the study of ancient pyro-technologies (from Greek ฯฯ ฯ, pyr, fire).
In the process of producing pottery, the firing stage โ and in particular temperatures and structures used โ give us important insights into technologies and manufacturing techniques. The sequence of actions that transform clay objects into durable ceramics is one of the crucial stages of ceramic production, and it is possibly the most dramatic. There are a number of approaches that can be used to understand ancient pyro-technologies, ranging from experimental archaeology to analytical techniques. In the photos below, youโฆ
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Hi again โ it is Alessandro, your neighbourhood ceramic specialist. In a previous post on Indus Ceramics (link here) I mentioned some of my daily tasks as part of the TwoRains research project in Cambridge: amongst them, ceramic thin-section petrography, which I am using to study aspects of ancient Indus societies, crafts and technologies.
Between excavations in the field and laboratory analysis, there is an intermediate stage where I identify the most suitable vessels for further study and collect samples, including thin-sections and powder from ceramic vessels. This can be quite an engaging and complex task, particularly if you are not allowed to move antiquities out of a country and bring them to your laboratory. With this in mind, we asked how would we go about producing 30 micronsโ thick sections of ceramic vessel fragments in the field? Well, I have developedโฆ
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Greetings! โ this is Alessandro and I am one of the ceramics specialists for the ERC TwoRains project. For my PhD research, I am pursuing a holistic approach to the study of archaeological ceramic materials from Indus urban and post-urban sites being excavated by the project to trace social continuity and transformations within the production systems of rural communities.
Long story short: I spend a lot of time looking at fragments of pottery, thin-sections and ceramic powder samples. I am combining technological and compositional methods to study ceramic industries, including thin-section petrography, XRD, FTIR, WD-XRF and pXRF. Combining these methods with traditional morpho-stylistic analysis, I am investigating the production (chaรฎne opรฉratoire) of artefacts to understand synchronic and diachronic cultural behaviour.
Indus Storage Jar from Mohenjo-daro. ยฉ The Trustees of the British Museum
In the last 6 months, I have been taking short breaks from microscopes and databases in Cambridge toโฆ
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Ancient South Asian crafts and technologies meet ancient and modern Greece Find the original post on the Fitch Blog, BSA, British School at Athens. You might wonder why an Italian researcher from Rome, PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, went to Athens to work on archaeological materials from Ancient India. Well, the reason is… Continue reading The Indus Civilisation in Athens, Greece
Original post on the TwoRains Blog. Hi again โ Alessandro here. After spending 4 months in India, studying ancient ceramic artefacts and working on the excavation at Lohari Ragho (link), Haryana, I am finally back in Cambridge, with plenty of samples. As mentioned in a previous blogpost (link), I spent several weeks at Banaras Hindu… Continue reading Ethnoarchaeology of crafts in villages in north-west India
Original post on the TwoRains Blog. Hi again โ it is Alessandro. I am currently writing from India, more specifically from Varanasi, an exceptional city in Uttar Pradesh, Northern India. You might say, โWait a second โ there is no Indus settlement in Varanasi! What are you doing there?โ The answer is simple: I am… Continue reading The City of Gods and Ancient Indus Craft Traditions
Original post on the TwoRains Blog. Hi again โ it is Alessandro, your friendly neighbourhood ceramic specialist. In the last few weeks, I have been busy re-firing some archaeological ceramics in a furnace at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. You might ask โWhy do you put ancient pottery in an oven?โ Although it… Continue reading Fire! Fire! โ Or why archaeologists investigate ancient firing technologies
Affordable, Practical and Transportable Petrographic Laboratory Original post on the TwoRains Blog. Hi again โ it is Alessandro, your neighbourhood ceramic specialist. In a previous post on Indus Ceramics (link here) I mentioned some of my daily tasks as part of theย TwoRainsย research project in Cambridge: amongst them, ceramic thin-section petrography, which I am using to… Continue reading Introducing the APT Petro-Lab
Original post on the ERC TwoRains Blog,ย HERE. Greetings! โ this is Alessandro and I am one of the ceramics specialists for the ERC TwoRains project. For my PhD research, I am pursuing a holistic approach to the study of archaeological ceramic materials from Indus urban and post-urban sites being excavated by the project to trace… Continue reading Beyond Indus Ceramics: Exploring the British Museum Collections
Dr Alessandro Ceccarelli 