Luke J. Pecoraro

Winterthur Program in American Material Culture

Luke Pecoraro

Senior Curator of Ceramics and Glass Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library

Biography

Luke Pecoraro, PhD is the Curator of Ceramics and Glass at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. He has worked as a field archeologist in the mid-Atlantic, the Chesapeake, New England and the Caribbean on a variety of prehistoric and historic sites, previously serving as the Director of Archaeology and Collections for the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust, the Director of Curatorial Services for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, as well as the Director of Archaeology for George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Luke is also a research archaeologist for the First Colony Foundation, searching for the 16th century “Lost Colony” on Roanoke Island. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in history (Virginia Commonwealth University) a Master’s and Phd in archaeology from Boston University. He is an Associate Editor for the journal Historical Archaeology and a course instructor with the National Preservation Institute. Recent publications include “We have done very little investigation there; there is a great deal yet to do”: The archaeology of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, in Stewards of Memory: The Past, Present, and Future of Historic Preservation at Mount Vernon, edited by Carol Borchert Cadou, Luke J. Pecoraro, and Thomas Reinhart, and a book chapter as a co-author with John Cherry and Krysta Ryzewski, “A Kind of Sacred Place”: The Rock and Roll Ruins of AIR Studios, Montserrat.” In Archaeologies of Mobility and Movement, edited by M.C. Beaudry and T.G. Parno. Luke was named to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 40 Under 40: People Saving Places in 2019, and was the recipient of an International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello Residential Fellowship in 2022. In 2025, Luke was the Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation Scholar for the Attingham Summer School.