Michigan Technological University

Faculty Member, Social Sciences

Industrial Heritage and Archaeology

Sciences and Arts

Thesis Title: Potting in Zion: the potter's craft and industry in Utah, 1848-1930

About

Dr. Scarlett is interested in the history of work and the social construction of technological systems.  He studies how individuals creatively solved problems and adapted to new natural environments and social landscapes.  He uses diverse methods in his studies, employing techniques from chemistry and physics through folklore and art history.  Besides fieldwork, Dr. Scarlett relies upon experimental and experiential discovery in his scholarship.  He has conducted research at sites in the Great Basin and Intermountain West, Southwest, Interior Alaska, New England, and the Mid-Atlantic regions of North America.  He is the director of the Utah Pottery Project and co-director of the West Point Foundry Research Program.

Dr. Scarlett began teaching in 1992 and has been recognized for excellence by several institutions.  His early experiences, as an educational docent for the Arizona State Museum and as a teacher for the John’s Hopkins University Center for Academically Talented Youth, provided him with educational training unusual for a University professor.  He is among the most popular and highest-rated professors in Michigan Technological University’s core studies program.  During the past three years, he delivered the university’s “first college lecture” to welcome all 1,500 students joining the campus community. 

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