Harvard Gazette: Marine vet’s future was a puzzle. Then he found archaeology.

The Department of Anthropology at Harvard University is glad to share a new story published in The Harvard Gazette, featuring recent graduate Shane Rice ('25) and Professor Jason Ur.

The professor’s office was wallpapered with declassified U.S. intelligence photos.

“I walked in and the first thing I saw were these floor-to-ceiling printouts of U2 and CORONA aerial imagery,” recalled Shane Rice ’25. “I took one look and thought — maybe there’s something here.”

Rice, 26, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, needed a new scholarly focus. When he first arrived at Harvard from Warrenton, Virginia, he had his sights set on environmental engineering. But the field proved a poor fit for his interests and talents. “So I went on this search,” he recalled. “I got lunch with all these different department heads including integrative bio and environmental science public policy.”

The quest ended in the office of Jason Ur, Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology, with its collection of aerial landscapes. The display resonated with Rice, in part due to his military training. As a mortarman, he frequently worked with maps and satellite imagery over three deployments.

Read the full story here.