[1] Initially trained as a geographer, he has been a major figure in defining the subdiscipline of geoarchaeology and has spent the last thirty years focusing on the effects of geologic processes on the archaeological record.
[2] His primary research interests include geoarchaeology, Quaternary soils, geology, paleoecology, and paleoenvironmental reconstruction in the Great Plains region of the United States as well as the Mediterranean.
[2] Following the completion of his B.S., Mandel spent a year working as a research associate for the resource planning section at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
[3] For the next four years, Mandel worked as a physical geographer until a cultural resource management project with the Kansas Historical Society changed the trajectory of his career.
For the rest of his time as coordinator of the Environmental Research Program, he focused predominantly on projects relating to archaeology and cultural resource management in the Midwest.
[3] Almost a decade later in 2002, Mandel would take a position at the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) as a part-time project coordinator for the Geoarchaeology Research Program.
Some of his more recent work includes contributing to a team studying the cultural landscape and qanat systems of southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province.
The program funds a number of thesis and dissertation research related to Paleo-Indian archaeology and geoarchaeology in addition to supporting graduate and undergraduate students involved in summer field investigations.