USF Institute for Digital Exploration

Today, we had the honor of welcoming the Tampa Agrigento Sister Cities Committee to our excavation at the Roman Villa del Tellaro in Noto!
​As the committee travels through Sicily signing new friendship agreements, it was an amazing opportunity to showcase the world-class digital archaeology and research that the USF IDEx team is doing in the field.
​Connecting our Tampa community leaders with our international research highlights the true power of global partnerships. Huge thanks to the committee for stopping by, and to our incredible team for bringing history to light! USF World USF College of Arts and Sciences Loggia Mona-Lisa

Exciting news from the field!

We have officially wrapped up week one of our 4-week archaeological excavation at the stunning Roman Villa del Tellaro in Sicily!

This site is incredibly important to our understanding of late Roman history, famed for its breathtaking, intricate mosaics. Over the next three weeks, our team will be working hard to uncover new insights into the past.

This groundbreaking project, led by IDEx director Davide Tanasi and made possible thanks to a memorandum of understanding with the Parco archeologico di Siracusa, Eloro, villa del Tellaro e Akrai, brings together a talented, multidisciplinary team, including graduate students from the USF Department of History (Lisa Shorts and Madison Fidler) and USF Department of Anthropology (Aiden Eylward) departments alongside our expert staff.

We have high expectations for major discoveries this season, and this project speaks volumes about the global reach and impact of USF research. Our students and faculty aren't just studying history in the classroom, they are actively uncovering it on the world stage.

Stay tuned for updates, behind-the-scenes looks, and discoveries as we dig deeper! USF College of Arts and Sciences USF World

Everybody has a happy place... For the IDEx team is the Tampa Museum of Art! Another successful digital fieldwork to enrich with new 3D assets the digital presence of this amazing museum!

What an honor to attend and speak today at the first Black Cemetery Conference. We are delighted to speak about our work in digitizing at-risk memory spaces like historic Black cemeteries which have been lost to time and neglect. So many amazing presenters/speakers/artists/scholars. Thank you to Dr. Antoinette Jackson and the Black Cemetery Network for including us in this important work, and for State Representative Fentrice Driskell for her vital legislative work in preserving Florida cemetery heritage.

You can read more about BCN here:
https://blackcemeterynetwork.org/

Excited to share our work on digital preservation of Florida black cemetery at the 2026 Black Cemetery Network conference! We'll be in the panel "Tools, resources, and expertise in historic cemetery preservation and remembering": Panel participants: FPAN (R. Kangas), Stantec (R. O’Sullivan), USF IDEx (Dr. D. Tanasi), USF Libraries Special Collections (A. Boczar); Exec Director, River Road African American Museum + funeral home director, Hambrick Family Mortuary (D. Hambrick); forensic science and community history (Dr. P. Stubblefield); Moderator - Dr. A. Jackson.

Congratulations to IDEx Senior Members Dr. Madeleine Kraft and Angela Costello, who will both be presenting at the Annual Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (NAPS) in Chicago from May 21–23".
Madeleine will present on “Religious Co-Production in the Catacombs of Santa Lucia: The Formation of Funerary Religion and the Materiality of Syncretism in Sicily, 3rd-6th Centuries CE”, and Angela on “The Daughters of Eve: Assessing the Writings of the Church Fathers to Better Understand Women’s Dress in Late Antiquity”.
We couldn't have asked for a better representative for our team!"

Some days our fieldworks are in truly wonderful places! Today our team was at the USF Contemporary Art Museum to digitize "Things Don't Seem the Same" 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition" and we loved every minute of it!

Join us this Friday for the next joint event with the University of South Florida Libraries. Only a few open seats left!

Join us this Friday, April 24th, from 9am - 1pm for a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) workshop in collaboration with the USF Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx)!

This workshop is open to USF students, staff, and faculty. Email Sara Hassam to RSVP: [email protected]

Join IDEx Director, Dr Davide Tanasi, tomorrow at the The Italian Club of Tampa for his lecture on Roman Villas in ancient Sicily! For tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sicily-history-culture-dinner-lecture-tickets-1984077514255?aff=oddtdtcreator