Lara Fabian is an archaeologist studying Rome’s eastern borderlands and the spaces beyond imperial control, focusing on the South Caucasus as well as the Circumpontic and Caspian zones. Her research looks at the relationships between local communities, the Roman and Arsacid empires, and the Sarmatian (mobile pastoralist) world. She also engages with the intellectual history of archaeology in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the contemporary Eurasian space. She is completing her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania (2018), having conducted dissertation research in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia with the support of a CLIR-Mellon Fellowship (2015) and CAORC Multi-Country Research Fellowship (2016). She is the co-director of the collaborative Azerbaijani-American ‘Lerik in Antiquity Archaeological Project,’ which has since 2016 explored a highland landscape in the southern mountains of Azerbaijan. She has conducted other fieldwork in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Italy and England.