Wei Ping is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology.

More information about Wei Ping Young

Research

My current PhD research has a focus on studying key wild plant foods potentially used by early hominins in early Pleistocene environments. To understand plants in past hominin diets and movements, my work will use paleoenvironmental and archaeological data to inform experiments studying how nutrition and the energy required for processing edible plant contributed to food choice.

This research is part of the "Hominin FoodWays: Changing Diet and Food Processing Across Climate Frontiers” project, supported by the Vici grant and led by Professor Amanda Henry.

My research interests relate to past diets and foodways, archaeobotany/paleobotany, Southeast Asian archaeology, early hominins, among others.

Curriculum vitae

I graduated from Leiden University with a MSc in Archaeological Science (with a specialisation in archaeobotany ) in 2025, and obtained a Bachelor of Science in Archaeology in 2019 from the Institute of Archaeology in University College London (UCL).

In both of my thesis projects, I experimented with micro-morphological methods (starch analysis, SEM) to identify and study prehistoric processing of plant-based foods, specifically south Indian breads and sago usage in Southeast Asia, in archaeological contexts.

Prior to commencing my MSc, I worked many roles dealing with heritage policy, archaeology, curation, and sustainability in various institutions in Singapore.

Office days

Monday to Friday.