Olsen is a former Head of the UA Department of Anthropology (1998-2008) and is now Director of the Je Tsongkhapa Endowment for Central and Inner Asian Archaeology at the University of Arizona.

He is concurrently Co-Director of the Joint Mongolian-Russian-American Archaeological Expeditions and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Zhoukoudian International Paleoanthropological Research Center in Beijing.  Olsen is one of only a handful of foreign scholars to be awarded academic titles by the Mongolian Academy of Humanitarian Sciences (Academician, 1998) and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences (Doctoris Archaeologiae Honoris Causa, 2003).

• Bachelor of Arts (Summa Cum Laude, Honors in Anthropology & Oriental Studies):  University of Arizona, 1976
• Master of Arts (Anthropology):  University of California, Berkeley, 1977
• Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology):  University of California, Berkeley, 1980
• Academician:  Mongolian Academy of Humanitarian Sciences, 1998
• Doctoris Archaeologiae Honoris Causa:  Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 2003

Eastern Eurasian prehistory with temporal and geographical foci on the Paleolithic of arid and high-altitude Central and Inner Asia, particularly Mongolia, Tibet (sensu lato), and the Trans-Himalaya; Northeast Asia; Saharan North Africa, especially the Libyan Desert; paleoecology and the impact of environmental degradation on prehistoric societies in arid zones; cultural ecology and environmental archaeology with emphasis on zooarchaeology, especially animal husbandry among pastoral and nomadic societies; spatial analysis in archaeology, including applications of remote sensing and geographic information systems.

Dr. Olsen has conducted archaeological fieldwork in the United States (Florida & Arizona), Colombia, Belize, the Philippines, Egypt, the Sudan, the People’s Republic of China (Xinjiang, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Gansu, & Ningxia), Việt Nam, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Türkmenistan, the Russian Federation (Siberia and the Altai Republic), Mongolia, and Tibet.

NOTE: The itemized list of "Geographic Areas of Interest" (below) is NOT a prioritized ranking.