Steven R. Simms

Steven R. Simms is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, where he taught since 1988. He also taught at Weber State College and the University of Utah. He conducted archaeological field work across the United States and in the Middle East for 50 years, participating in hundreds of field trips. Simms authored over 100 scientific publications. His books include Ancient Peoples of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau (2008), and Traces of Fremont: Society and Rock Art in Ancient Utah (2010) awarded the Society for American Archaeology Book award in the public audience category and the Utah Book Award for nonfiction. He directed over 60 archaeological projects, including the Great Salt Lake Wetlands Project 1990 – 93, funded by the state of Utah, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Science Foundation. He served on the scientific advisory board of Friends of Great Salt Lake since the organization was founded in 1994. Since childhood he has hiked the mountains and deserts of the American West and slept on the ground nearly a thousand nights. In retirement he lives with his partner Judy Nelson, a ceramicist and artist on “Piney Island” at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains in Story, Wyoming.

He continues to write and his new public audience book, "First Peoples of Great Salt Lake: A Cultural Landscape from Nevada to Wyoming" will be published by the University of Utah Press in Fall 2023.