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 Patrick Ryan Williams is Content Specialist for The Field Museum's Maps: Finding Our Place in the World.
Williams is the Associate Curator of Archaeological Science and South American Archaeology & Ethnology at The Field Museum.
Williams has conducted archaeological field research in Southern Peru for the past decade. He has directed research on ancient agricultural hydraulics in the Peruvian Andes and has collaborated on projects at Tiwanaku, on Inka mummies, and on the earliest peoples of the Americas at Quebrada Tacahuay. He currently leads excavations funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities to examine political interactions of the Wari administrative center of Cerro Baul (A.D. 600–1000), a mesa top citadel in Tiwanaku territory.
Williams' specialties include GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and remote sensing, technologies that associate data and a database with spatial geography, which highlight potential dig sites and help interpret archeological finds. Using maps in this way, he studies the interaction between ancient peoples and their environments.
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Learn about 11 other research projects by Field Museum scientists that involve some form of mapping:
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 Rüdiger Bieler works in the Florida Keys and uses GPS to study population changes among mollusks.
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 Dan Brinkmeier from The Field Museum's Environmental and Conservation Program (ECP) works with the Indigenous Cofán people of Ecuador to map historical and cultural sites for future generations of Cofán.
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 L. Antonio Curet uses geophysical techniques, including magnetometry (a sonar-like system that uses magnets to scan the ground) to plot buried structures and pinpoint where to dig.
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 Gary Feinman works in Oaxaca, Mexico, creating survey maps to illustrate changes in human settlement patterns over the millennia.
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 Chap Kusimba works in Kenya mapping the origins of glass beads and artifacts to understand early trade routes and community relationships.
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 Bruce Patterson uses satellite technology maps to track the movements of the maneless lion in eastern Kenya.
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 Richard Ree uses satellite technology and digital maps to locate and plot the habitat of rare plants in the mountains of South-central China.
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 John Terrell charts the linguistic and material diversity of communities in New Guinea and exposes unexpected similarities.
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 Anne Underhill surveys the landscape of eastern China and maps the artifacts she finds, discovering the locations of past settlements and populations.
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 Harold Voris uses maps of the ocean floor to locate ancient land bridges so he can understand how the amphibians he studies traveled from place to place.
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 Phil Willink uses maps to chart where fish are living, where they used to live, and track changes in habitats and biodiversity.
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