Since 2013, Prof. Dr. Sandra L. López Varela (Ph.D. in Archaeology, University of London, 1996) is full-time Professor at the Department of Development and Intercultural Heritage Management of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and a Registered Professional Archaeologists (RPA 15480). In between 2018-2020, López Varela was Secretary of the Archaeology Division of the AAA and section editor of Anthropology News. After serving as President and Vice President of the Society for Archaeological Sciences (SAS 2009-2011) and as President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Alumni Club-Mexico Division (2008-2010), she was elected to the Executive the board of the AAA where she held the Archeology Seat. During her term (2011-2014), she was part of the Committee on World Anthropologies, the Ethics Committee, and worked with the Cultural Heritage Task Force as their board liaison. In between 2015 and 2017, she served as Treasurer of the Mexican Society of Anthropology (SMA). In 2009, Dr. López Varela joined the Mexican Academy of Arts, Technology and Humanities. Since 1992, she is recognized as National Researcher of the Mexican Research Council in Science and Technology (CONACyT). She joined the Academia Mexicana de Ciencias Artes, Tecnología y Humanidades in 2009. Since 2019, López Varela has been a Brain City of Berlin Ambassador.

Prof. López Varela’s earlier research, focusing on the study of Maya ceramics and ethnoarchaeological investigations of pottery production technologies, led her to adopt a critical and analytical stance towards economic and development growth policies to combat poverty in Mexico. These policies often do not benefit local communities and commonly interfere with heritage preservation. Results from these investigations received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel-Forschungspreis award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2012.  Dr. López Varela is general editor of the Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences published by Wiley Blackwell.