Seana Elizabeth Fenner von Fenneberg has recently authored the textbook
Archaeoastronomy through the Ages, which will be published in 2012. Her next project, already underway, is a science fiction novel. For further information email
archaeoastronomy.book@gmail.com
Fenner's career experience includes having worked as an operating assistant for the
NASA Infrared Telescope on top of Mauna Kea (the White Mountain) in Hawaii and as a lecturer for the physics and astronomy department at the
University of Hawaii, where she has created and taught two archaeoastronomy courses:
Archaeoastronomy and
Renaissance Astronomy and the Age of Exploration. Archaeological fieldwork and research expeditions, mostly in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, the U.K., and the Middle East, have also formed a large part of her work. In Hawaii, she has arranged archaeoastronomical field trips for her students featuring Polynesian celestial navigation in Hawaiian voyaging canoes, stargazing at the summit of Mauna Kea and visits to ancient Hawaiian navigational heiaus (temples). Fenner has served as a lecturer for the
Harvard Museum of Natural History on a round-the-world archaeoastronomy expedition, exploring sites in Egypt, Cambodia, Rapanui (Easter Island), India, Papua New Guinea, the U.K., Dubai, Samoa, Guatemala and Peru. Her latest fieldwork project was a study of the ancient megalithic henge at Callanish in the Outer Hebrides where she studied the “capturing the Moon” effect created by ancient astronomers that occurs once every two decades.
Fenner grew up in Miami, Florida and entered
Barry University as part of an early admission program at the age of 16. She obtained a bachelors degree in history and English literature with a minor in religion. She did her graduate work in classical archaeology and ancient languages at
Florida State University and the
University of Oxford in England, where she did research on satyrs in mythological contexts on Greek vases, satyr plays, the Oxyrhynchus papyri from Egypt and iconography, under the supervision of Sir John Boardman.
In her free time, Seana Fenner enjoys botany, gardening, dance, singing, photography, stargazing and scuba diving. She was once a serious marathon runner, taught aerobics classes and managed a health club. Currently, she manages the
Oxford Alumni Society for the Hawaiian Islands and is the choreographer for a group of Italian Renaissance Court dancers, the
Dancers del Vulcano Impetuoso, who have performed at Kilauea Theatre and for the "Shakespeare in the Park" production of
Much Ado about Nothing. Fenner has taught Renaissance dance at the University of Hawaii and has given Middle Eastern Dance seminars for the Volcano Art Center and the Naniloa Resort. She has sung for various choral groups in Hawaii, such as the
Chamber Singers and the ancient music group,
Mirth and Merriment. Because of her keen interest in astronomy and botany, Fenner has volunteered as a star gazing guide on Mauna Kea and a rare plant specialist at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. She has been a guide for numerous natural history tours in Hawaii, including birding, botany and vulcanology forays at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, snorkeling excursions and trips to the summit of Mauna Kea for stargazing and has served as a lecturer for the Harvard Museum of Natural History expedition to the Hawaiian Islands. Fenner spent several years living and traveling in South America and South East Asia, particularly in Borneo, collecting plants for a botanical garden. She was elected to membership in the
Explorers Club in 2005.
