Heather Lechtman is an American materials scientist and archaeologist, and Director at the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology (CMRAE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[1][2] She specializes in prehistoric technology of the Andean area of South America, and in particular metallurgy.
Lechtman graduated from Vassar College with an AB in Physics, and went on to work at the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research (1956-1960), the American Institute of Physics (1960-1962), and Brookhaven National Laboratory (1963-1964).
In 1966 she received an MA in Fine Arts and Archaeology at New York University.
She then became a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967, and a professor in Materials Science and Engineering there in 1974.