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The Astarte People
Ben Churcher
Ben has a wide range of experience both as an educator, a traveller, a historian and an archaeologist.
Ben graduated from Queensland University in 1983 with Honours in Ancient History and he also holds a Diploma of Education from the University of Sydney
Since 1983 Ben has been involved in the yearly excavations by the University of Sydney at the site of Pella in Jordan and he is, at present, the field director of the project. As well as his ‘hands-on’ excavation experience, Ben has also travelled widely throughout Europe, the Middle east, North and East Africa, Japan, South-east Asia and his home country of Australia.
Ben has taught at both Australian High Schools and within Adult Education in Sydney. This experience prompted Ben to establish Astarte Resources in 1993 in order to redress what he felt was a lack of audio-visual educational resources that specialised in history and archaeology.
At Astarte Resources, Ben scripts and presents many of our documentaries and he is involved in producing many of the support materials and classroom activity kits. Ben also oversees the office and organises most aspects of Astarte Resources’ day to day activities.
For Ben, Astarte Resources covers his three great loves - education, travel and the study of history and archaeology. He hopes that a little of his experience in these fields is contained in each and every product produced or distributed by Astarte Resources.
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Paul Churcher
Paul’s involvement with Astarte Resources began in 1993 and he remains one of the most essential members of the team.
Paul manages the production of our videos and is involved with all aspects of the videos’ production - from scripting through to location camera work and video editing.
Paul also manages a vineyard outside Canberra and works free-lance as an audio recorder on projects ranging from New Zealand to East Timor.
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David Pattison
David manages Astarte Design Associates, a sister organisation of Astarte Resources, providing industrial automation consultancy, software design and Information Technology services.
Since 1993, David has worked with Astarte Resources, managing computer and software related projects, most recently the development and implementation of Astarte’s internet domain and web site.
David graduated in Mathematics from Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London in 1989, training with GEC Electrical Projects in Rugby, England in Industrial Process Control and Modelling. From there he worked with computer security and Evaluation, studying formal methods of software development ('Z', VDM, etc) with Admiral UK before forming Astarte Design in 1991
Since then he has worked on numerous automation projects in Australia and the UK, developing process control and SCADA applications.
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Helen Nicholson
Helen holds a BA (Hons 1) and MPhil in Archaeology from the University of Sydney where she has lectured since 1994. Helen is an archaeologist and educator and regularly convenes workshops, study days and lectures for various institutions and organisations.
Her passion for travel has taken her to Europe, Western, Central and SE Asia, the United States and the Pacific. She has worked with overseas and University of Sydney archaeological expeditions in Greece, Italy, Jordan, Cyprus and Uzbekistan and currently works as an archaeologist in Australia.
Helen’s involvement with Astarte Resources began in early 1993 while excavating at Pella in Jordan and has continued ever since. Helen's extensive teaching, research, travel, fieldwork and administrative skills and experience play a vital and invaluable role in the creation, development and production of all Astarte Resources’ multimedia resources and publications.
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