Megan Crutcher, Ann Plato Postdoctoral Fellow in History at Trinity College, has received a grant from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology for the project, “Where Trees Meet the Tide: Documenting Traditional Watercraft Construction in Liberia, West Africa.”
“Where Trees Meet the Tide” documents the design, construction, and cultural significance of traditional dugout canoes and larger, motorized “Fanti boats” in Liberia, West Africa. The watercraft sustain more than 90 percent of the nation’s artisanal and small-scale fisheries.
Amid pressures to replace these vessels with fiberglass hulls, this project aims to document and analyze the design and construction process of both watercraft types. Using visual media and interviews, the project will record construction and maintenance techniques and seek to understand social networks among builders and fishers along Liberia’s coast. By analyzing design choices shaped by materiality and cultural heritage, the study aims to preserve knowledge of maritime traditions increasingly lost elsewhere in West Africa.
Crutcher is a historian and archaeologist with research and teaching interests at the intersection of public history, maritime archaeology, and Africana studies. Crutcher’s scholarly focus has been on the maritime history and archaeology of the Atlantic World and West Africa, especially Liberia. Crutcher earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology (Nautical Archaeology Program) from Texas A&M University in 2025 and holds an M.A. in Public History from Duquesne University (2020). In Liberia, they co-direct the Kru Coast Heritage Initiative, an archaeological heritage preservation project in southeastern Sinoe County. Crutcher also is a certified rescue diver and has worked on excavations, surveys, and archaeological conservation projects on land and underwater in Spain, Portugal, Liberia, Canada, and the U.S.
Katsuya Izumi, senior lecturer in language and culture studies, has received a grant award from the Northeast Asian Council of the Association for Asian Studies to support research for an upcoming book.
Trinity College Assistant Professor of International Studies Natassja B. Gunasena was awarded a Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars to support research that she plans to publish as a book.
A Trinity College faculty member will share her expertise at a screening of the Academy Award-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher in Hartford.
Trinity College Associate Professor of History Jonathan Elukin has received a yearlong residential fellowship for the 2026-27 academic year at The Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.
