AMEC associate professor Dr. James (Jimmy) Hardin has been appointed the new Interim Director of the Cobb Institute of Archaeology after the retirement of the previous Director, Dr. Evan Peacock. Hardin began working at the Cobb in 1997 as a junior research associate and has been involved with Cobb-sponsored archaeological research since 1986, when he joined the Lahav research project at Tel Halif in Israel. He specializes in the Bronze and Iron Age cultures of ancient Syria-Palestine and supervises the Ancient Near East Archaeology Lab at the Cobb.