The Honor Frost Foundation is happy to welcome Dr. Ceri Ashley, who joined us in early October to take up a new position as grants manager. Ceri will be responsible for managing the granting process and working with successful scholars to complete their funded projects.

Ceri joins the HFF from the British Museum where she was head of the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme for six years. This programme supports a global community of scholars and community member to digitally document endangered heritage knowledge of disappearing material traditions and skills.

Ceri’s background is in archaeology, with a focus on material culture in Holocene eastern and southern Africa. Her PhD is on the Early Iron Age of Great Lakes Africa from the UCL Institute of Archaeology, after which she was the Cotsen Visiting Fellow at UCLA, before returning to UCL to take up a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. Between 2011 and 2018 Ceri was a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor and Head of Archaeology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and between 2021 and 2023 was 0.2 Professor of Cultural Heritage at Nottingham Trent University. Ceri’s current research projects explore socio-political complexity and core-periphery relations in southern Africa and histories of museum collecting relating to making and process. She is a member of the Governing Council of the British Institute in Eastern Africa and a Trustee of the Powell Cotton Museum.

Who do I contact now?

For all your grant needs, please contact Dr. Ceri Ashley directly!

Dr. Lucy Blue will now be focusing on internally developed HFF activities, as well as larger regional development and capacity building initiatives.

Dr. Dani Newman is continuting with HFF, concentrating on capacity building, engagement, and training.