Cheryl Claassen graduated with a PhD in scientific archaeology from Harvard's Department of Anthropology in 1982 and spent her teaching career at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Today, she is known for her work with gender, shellfish, and ritual and landscape in North America and Mexico. She is the author of Feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley and Native American Landscapes: An Engendered Perspective, and she won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southeastern Archaeology Conference in 2024.