- According to the website's About page, Slightly Problematic is a "...Team of anthropologists critically engaging with their field and actively exploring anthropology as a valuable service to industries and organizations. We create researched content that is driven by passion, empathy, and activism as we explore the multitude of ways anthropology can provide context for our contemporary realities." As a contributing content creator, I shared my experience as a visual anthropologist using video, written, and audio media. A two-part series released in Fall 2021 illustrated the roots of visual anthropology and the diverse applications of visual anthropology in the field. Learn more about Slightly Problematic on their website. Also access the written two part series below: "Visual Anthropology Part 1: What is Visual Anthropology?" - originally published September 24, 2021 "Visual Anthropology Part 2: Why Use Visual Anthropology?" - originally published September 17, 2021
DENVER FIREFIGHTERS MUSEUM
While education and outreach coordinator at the Denver Firefighters Museum, I wrote articles for the membership quarterly newsletter and museum blog. I researched historical topics about Denver, firefighters, and the museum itself. The resources available at the museum as well as the first-person and historical accounts of events made it a fun writing activity. "Lessons from the 1918 Denver Flu Pandemic" - originally published in the summer newsletter and online on July 21, 2020 "Fire House No. 1 Ghost Stories" - originally published in the fall newsletter and online on November 6, 2020
"Storytelling and Self in Public Broadcast: A Visual Ethnography of Rocky Mountain PBS" (2019)
Thesis Program: University of Denver Dept. of Anthropology M.A. Publisher: ProQuest Abstract: Embodied storytelling in Denver’s public broadcast media establishes how the intersectional identities of storytellers influence narrative practices in Denver’s public sphere. Five approaches to communicating identity informed my theoretical background: embodiment, visual anthropology, the public sphere, practice theory, and phenomenology. Rocky Mountain PBS, a 60-year-old broadcast institution, served as my research site during the summer of 2018. In my thesis, I overviewed the history of RMPBS and observations of production activities performed by the creators of the show Colorado Memories. Using a phenomenological methodology, the research design and data collection included filmed participant observations, semi-structured interviews guided by a survey, and secondary analysis of Denver media. After completing qualitative analysis, I organized findings into six topics complementary to the filmed narratives: acquiring identity, learning storytelling, professional goals, (dis)comfort within storytelling, favorite stories, and future storytelling goals. The visual ethnography I made from my findings illustrates embodied storytelling through visual anthropology.
"Opening the Gendered Toolbox: The Advancement and Treatment of Women in Engineering at the Undergraduate Level" (2015)
Thesis Program: Clarkson University Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences B.S. Link: found here Abstract: The engineering field is one of the most underrepresented fields for women in STEM professions. With waning retention rates of women in the engineering field as women get older, young women truly hold the power to change the engineering environment now and in the future. This research explains why women enter undergraduate engineering programs and how their environment compares to women’s past academic and social environments in engineering. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were very few women in the engineering field. However, women’s admittance into engineering jobs during the world wars and into American university programs in engineering increased these numbers. Feminist thought in the twentieth century gave women more agency in their career choices, making it acceptable for women to have careers in engineering. But there still remains a stigma attached to women engineers described as microdiscrimination and microaggression. Minute cultural reminders exist in the lives of women engineers that limit their advancement. Clarkson University, a small engineering school in New York, today has 366 enrolled women in engineering. Founded as a coeducational institution in 1896, Clarkson excluded women from 1907 until 1964 when it reintroduced coeducation. My ethnographic work with the current Clarkson women in engineering shows that, while women in engineering are in greater numbers and have greater confidence, there are still elements of the engineering culture that should change in order to reach gender equality. I propose three possible solutions to meet these milestones: more recruitment in elementary schools, university curriculum adapted for more real world application, and more women engineering faculty and more professional women engineers who can serve as mentors for the next generation of women. Clarkson’s past and future advancement of women reflects the progress of women nationally.
After graduating from Clarkson University, I was contacted by our branch of The Odyssey Online to write weekly articles about life, culture, news, or whatever I was feeling that week. We produce a high level of content on a deadline and publish all of our own work using The Odyssey's online content creator. I have been writing weekly since July 2016 and have been featured on the national page. Browse through some of my articles below or see my profile here:
For my four years at Clarkson University, I wrote, edited, and designed layout for The Clarkson Integrator. I was elected into the positions of News Editor, Web Editor, and Assistant Editor in Chief. During my tenure, we produced weekly papers from four to twelve pages. We even started a media cooperative between the Clarkson Radio Station and Clarkson TV Station. You can find some of my pieces in links below:
During my semester abroad at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK, I wrote and designed the layout for their school newspaper, The Strathclyde Telegraph. I was assigned to the Music section of the monthly newspaper about local and national news and culture. Once a month, I would write artist, album, and concert reviews and news for music that I showed an interest in and the concerts that I attended while I was in Glasgow. I would then work with their layout editor to design their 24-page paper on a deadline using Adobe InDesign. Here are a couple of my articles:
I designed and a wrote a weekly blog for Clarkson University's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. This was from the student perspective about Clarkson's cultural events and general HSS-related news. I interviewed subjects, collected research, and promoted the blog on social media. This was during the internship in which I created an oral history archive for one of Professor Laura Ettinger's classes. Read some of my blog posts here: