Dr. Jennifer P. Mathews is a Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Trinity University. Her undergraduate degree was in anthropology from San Diego State University. She received her master’s and Ph.D. in anthropology, with a specialization in Maya archaeology, from the University of California at Riverside.

She has worked in the Yucatán Peninsula since 1993 studying the ancient, historical, and contemporary Maya. She is the co-editor of three edited volumes: Quintana Roo Archaeology (with Justine Shaw), Lifeways in the Northern Maya Lowlands: New Approaches to Archaeology in the Yucatán Peninsula (with Bethany Morrison), and The Value of Things: Prehistoric to Contemporary Commodities in the Maya Region (with Tom Guderjan). She also published the two monographs, Chicle: Chewing Gum of the Americas: From the Ancient Maya to William Wrigley (with Gillian P. Schultz) in 2009 and (with John Gust, 2020) Sugarcane and Rum: The Bittersweet History of Labor and Life on the Yucatán Peninsula. She was named the 2019 recipient of the Dr. and Mrs. Z.T. Scott Faculty for Trinity University and the Piper Professorship for the state of Texas in 2020 in recognition of her outstanding abilities as a teacher and mentor.