Luise Ørsted Brandt
Biography
Luise is an archaeologist specialised in the prehistory of Scandinavian and the analysis of ancient proteins from especially cloth materials (skin, fur and textiles). She graduated from The University of Copenhagen in 2010 with a master in Prehistoric Archaeology. She then started a PhD between the Centre for Textile Research and Centre for GeoGenetics at University of Copenhagen to trace the first sheep wool for clothing and species identifying skin from Danish Prehistoric garments. This research won her a Carlsberg postdoc grant to work on the trade of Viking Age skin and fur materials at Urbnet, Aarhus University. After returning to University of Copenhagen she is now an assistant professor in Collins group and leads the research and outreach project Next Generation Lab that identifies leather and bone from Danish medieval cities by teaching high school students to apply peptide mass fingerprinting.
Research
As well as running the research and outreach project Next Generation Lab, Luise’s research focuses on prehistoric cloth materials, including skin, leather, fur and textile. By characterising, identifying and interpreting them, she discussed amongst others their properties, use, meaning and origins. Luise is also involved in analysing ancient Egyptian mummy wrappings.