Following a BA in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Helena Hamerow completed a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford in 1988. She then held the Mary Somerville Research Fellowship at Somerville College, Oxford until 1990, when she took up a Lectureship in Early Medieval Archaeology at Durham University. She returned to Oxford in 1996 where she is currently Professor or Early Medieval Archaeology and a Fellow of St Cross College. She is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.