Donna Yates is an experienced researcher who (as of April 2025) was an Associate Professor of Criminology within the Faculty of Law at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Donna has held a number of grants and awards as both Principal Investigator and as Work-package Leader related to researching the global trade in illicit antiquities. These include:
- Trafficking Transformations (PI, 2020–2025), a €1.5 million European Research Council starting grant to study how objects influence criminal networks, with a particular focus on objects such as antiquities, fossils, and rare and collectible wildlife;
- Priceless Assets of Subversion: Financial Crime and the Valuation of Unique Goods (WP Leader, 2024–2027), a €1.3 million Dutch Research Council grant to study subversive crime related to high value unique goods such as artworks and watches;
- Revitaliser (WP Leader, 2025–2027), a €1.5 million WIDERA Programme, Horizon Europe grant focused on protection of archaeological sites from illegal activity;
- A Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2012–2016) and a Core Fulbright Award (2012–2013) to study the trafficking of Latin American antiquities.
- Additional research funding from the Carnegie Trust (Scotland), the Scottish Funding Council’s Global Challenges Research Fund, the British Academy, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Canada), etc.
She has also conducted research in this area for IGOs, think tanks, and research firms, and has provided expert consultation, training, and advice to multiple governments and agencies, and relevant intergovernmental organisations.
Yates was awarded a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge (2012). She was also awarded an additional PhD in Criminology from the University of Glasgow (2024) based on the strength of her corpus of published criminological work. Her first degree was in Archaeology at Boston University with a focus on Mesoamerica. She went on to complete an MPhil in Archaeological Heritage and Museums at Cambridge. Her MPhil thesis documented the market for illicit South American antiquities at US-based auctions.
