Richard M. Leventhal is Executive Director of the PennCultural Heritage Center of the Penn Museum as well as Professor Department ofAnthropology, University of Pennsylvania. He serves as Curator in the AmericanSection at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology andAnthropology where he formerly served as the Williams Director. Prior to comingto Penn, he was the President of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe,New Mexico and the Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology of Archaeologyat UCLA. Leventhal received his PhD from Harvard University. He is one of theDirectors of the Tihosuco Heritage Preservation and Community DevelopmentProject focused upon the 19th century Caste War rebellion in theYucatan. He has written extensively about the ancient Maya and about culturalheritage preservation.

Research Interests

CulturalHeritage Preservation and Economic Development- the direct connection between local communities and heritage preservation andcommunity development; Executive Director of the Penn Cultural Heritage Centerof the Penn Museum; Implementation Modelsfor Heritage Preservation and Development: Mexico, Syria, Iraq and otherlocations throughout the world; Activefield program in the Maya Yucatan of Mexico: Tihosuco Heritage Preservationand Community Development Project; Museumsand monuments in the 21st century; AncientMesoamerica - archaeology and a studies of the past; Intellectual History of American archaeology.