Richard D. Hansen is a distinguished American archaeologist and currently Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He previously has been an Affiliate Research Professor and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Mesoamerican Research in the Department of Anthropology at Idaho State University and an Associate Scientist (Level IV) at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA. Hansen is a specialist on the ancient Maya civilization and also a director of the Mirador Basin Project, which investigates the mainly unexplored territory in the northern Peten, Guatemala.