Neil M. Judd (1887–1976) began his career as an archaeological field assistant during excavations in southeastern Utah in 1907–1909. In 1911, Judd was hired by the Smithsonian Institution and served as the Smithsonian's Curator of Archaeology from 1919 until 1949. He directed excavations in many areas of the southwestern United States, including that of Pueblo Bonito, an Ancestral Pueblo site in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.

Neil Judd, 1931, Washington, D.C. Taken from Department of Anthropology group portrait. Washington, D.C., National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, neg. no. 18,107-a