Sydney Patterson majored in anthropology and classics during her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Alberta in Canada. She then continued on to complete a MA in classical archaeology in 2015, supervised by Dr Margriet Haagsma, which focused on age identity as evident through variations in funerary practices at ancient Olynthus in Greece, titled 'Studying the Living Through the Dead: A survey of the graves at Olynthus and the underlying social constructions of age'.
In order to better understand and study funerary practices, Sydney completed a MSc in human osteology and funerary archaeology at the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, in 2020 under the supervision of Dr Elizabeth Craig-Atkins. Her dissertation, 'Getting Better with Age: The expression of age identity within funerary contexts using archaeological case studies', expanded on her previous dissertation topic while placing more emphasis on osteological analysis in conjunction with archaeological interpretations.
In November 2021, Sydney began a PhD position with Ghent University as part of the Thorikos Archaeological Research Project (TARP), supervised by Dr Roald Docter and Dr Alexandra Alexandridou (University of Ioannina), wherein she is combining the study of the legacy data from previous excavations of graves in Thorikos with recent osteological assessments and new methodologies, such as archaeothanatology, to provide a holistic picture of funerary practices in ancient Thorikos, how they changed over time, and how such variations reflected the realities of past peoples.
