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Beverly Ann Davenport |
Anthropology and social epidemiology of chronic disease (especially hypertension, type II diabetes and obesity), the role of race and class as variables in health disparities in the United States, communication processes in medical care, medical professional socialization processes, qualitative methods in program evaluation |
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Doug Henry |
Medical anthropology, refugee and immigrant health, international and public health, the demographic impacts of culture change, the Internet, international disaster relief, violence, Africa |
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Lisa Henry |
Cross-cultural health beliefs and treatments, healthcare decision making and alternative medicine, evaluation of healthcare delivery in hospitals and clinics, patient response and compliance to treatment plan, curriculum evaluation in medical schools |
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Ann Jordan |
Business anthropology, organizational culture, self-managed work teams, organizational diversity, American Indians, especially urban American Indian groups and traditional medicine people |
| Mariela Nuñez-Janes | Anthropology of education, bilingual education, multiculturalism, hidden curriculum and critical pedagogy. Race and ethnicity, nationalism, Latinos, whiteness, border studies, U.S. Southwest, and the applied implications of "insider" research. |
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Alicia Re Cruz |
Migrants and refugees, displacement, border studies, Hispanic culture and society, Latin America, Mesoamerican culture, Maya culture and society, rural-urban migration, social change, tourism, transnationalism, peasant societies |
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Christina Wasson |
Virtual and face-to-face communication in the workplace, user-centered design of products and technologies, organizational culture, human-computer interaction, video ethnography, how visitors experience museums |
Examples of Applied Projects of Faculty Members
Beverly Ann Davenport
Project: SolanoWORKS-WIC
Nutrition Program Evaluation
Stakeholders:
Department of Health
and Social Services, Solano County, California
Date:
2001-2003
Description:
Dr. Davenport designed a program evaluation using
qualitative research methods for a special WIC program for
welfare-to-work mothers. She trained nutritionists in basic principles
of ethnographic research and writing, conducting monthly workshops to
help them develop their ethnographic write-ups of their clients. She
provided an overall data analysis, wrote the executive summary, edited
the ethnographic portraits written by the nutritionists and integrated
them into a comprehensive final report produced for the Director of the
Health and Social Services Department.
Doug Henry
Project: Social and Environmental Interventions Study
Employer: University of Texas SW Medical Center
Date: 2000-2002
Description: This project, a multi-stage, mixed quantitative/
qualitative study, was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) to look at "structural" influences from the
social and physical environment on the behavior of young gay and bisexual
men. Between 2000-2002, the project collaborated with some 200 young men
and over 80 local HIV service providers, outreach workers, community
leaders, and health professionals. The approach followed that of a
"community empowerment" intervention, in which community-wide
change in behaviors is targeted by organizing communities to define their
health problems, identify the determinants of those problems, and engage
in effective, collective action to change these determinants. The purpose
was been to engage young men in articulating the social and environmental
factors in their lives relevant to their current risk for HIV/ STD
infection, and to enlist their participation in conceptualizing,
prioritizing, and evaluating a range of potential prevention interventions
that could, if realized, fundamentally address these influences, and
positively impact their lives.
Project: Liberian, Nigerian, and Sudanese Refugee/ Immigrant Health
Concerns
Client: Baylor University Hospital, Dallas
Date: 1998, 2001
Description: Refugees and immigrants living in the United States
often have unique health concerns, of which U.S. health practitioners may
be ill equipped or simply too busy to understand. This research was based
on the belief that a better understanding of the social, cultural,
political, and economic situation of these groups could help U.S. health
care practitioners better meet refugee and immigrant health care needs.
The results of the Liberian research are posted on a website to increase
cultural sensitivity among medical practitioners: http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/refugees.htm
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Project: Health, Income,
& Empowerment Among Sierra Leonean
Refugees Client: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Field Office, Guéckédou, Guinea, West Africa Date: 1997 |
Description: Economic opportunities for camp-dwelling refugees are limited, a fact which has problematic implications for health and health behavior within the camps, in particular the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Currently the prevalence of STDs among refugees remains largely undocumented, as most cases are not reported to the formal sector. They are, however, widely acknowledged among refugees themselves to be common. This project was the result of preliminary research concerning health behaviors of Sierra Leonean (mostly Mende) refugees in Kolomba Camp, Rep. of Guinea. It attempted to shed light on the complex relationships that exist in camps between economic generating ability, empowerment, gender, culture, education, and "at risk" behavior. It was done in conjunction with the researchers' affiliation with the NGO's Catholic Mission for Refugees and Concern Universal, and as part of doctoral dissertation research in medical anthropology.
Lisa Henry
Project: Physician Assistant Students and Their Cadavers:
Narratives on the Gross Anatomy Experience
Client: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Date: 2001
Description: The goal of this study was to understand the
sociocultural experience of gross anatomy on physician assistant students.
By understanding this experience we hope to 1) better understand its
impact on the process of acculturation to the medical profession, and 2) expand the knowledge base of
physician assistant
educators to help them make appropriate educational decision for their students.
Mariela Nuñez-Janes
Project: Bilingual Education and Identity
Client: New Mexican Urban Elementary School
Date: 2000
Description: This project compared two strands of bilingual instruction (dual-language and maintenance) utilized in a New Mexican elementary school. The purpose was to understand how each strand's assumptions about the roles played by English and Spanish in the classroom informed Latino students' attitudes towards language and ethnicity. I conducted participant observation with fourth and fifth-grade students who identified as Mexicano and Chicano to further illuminate the historical tensions between long time Hispano residents and recently arrived Mexican immigrants.
Alicia Re Cruz
Project: Immigration Resource Council for Conflict Resolution
Client: North Texas community
Date: 2001-2002
Description: This project aims at resolving conflicts due to
cultural misunderstanding among the multi-cultural community of North
Texas. It provides assistance for immigrants, civic agencies, schools,
hospitals or other individuals and organizations that request the council's
resources for help in problem solving. The project helps with mediators,
translators, legal liaisons, and cultural experts provided through the
network of professionals, community leaders and ethnic associations which
comprise the program. In addition, this project is an exercise in keeping
university and community in constant communication; applied anthropology
students get involved at different steps of the research or resolution of
the case-conflict that the council deals with. This program is operated on
a volunteer basis.
Project: Dialogue Among Borders
Client: UNT (University of North Texas) and UQROO (The
University of Quintana Roo)
Date: 1999-2001
Description: This project aimed at analyzing the "border
culture" by establishing a dialogue between different Mexican border
regions: North, border with USA, and South, border with Belize. The study
had three focuses: public health, environment, and community development.
Two groups of students from both universities were selected. Through
videoconference, three scholars from both universities, specialized in the
study's focuses, presented their research to both student groups. An
integral part of the videoconference was a twenty to thirty minute time
for questions and answers among Texans and Mexican students, based on the
data presented and the stereotypes that each group had on their or the
others' border region. The project finished with a round table of guest
speakers which included scholars, community leaders and representatives,
and students in order to address the needs of both Mexican borders, and
the commonalities and differences among them. This project resulted in a
monograph that contains scholars' lectures, major points discussed at
the round table, and Mexican and Texan students papers which were
presented at the Society for Applied Anthropology meetings in 2000 and
2001.
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Project: Introduction of new planting techniques among Yucatec
Mayas in order to obtain more productive harvests. Client: Chan Kom, a Maya Yucatec community Date: 1989-90 |
Description: The Yucatec Mayas perform slash-and-burn techniques to plant corn in their milpas; however because of the exhaustion soil in the forest, their yields are more and more scarce. The Mexican Government tried to bring new planting techniques to the Maya communities, in order to produce more corn; however their training and efforts to teach and show the Maya peasants the new agricultural methods were not successful. This project showed that the agricultural introductions by the Government were clashing with the ancestral ways of "growing and nurturing" corn, which jeopardizes the ritual-sacred Maya cycle associated to corn. The study proposed alternatives of establishing "dialogues" between the new techniques and the traditional way of "making milpa". This project-study was part of my PhD research among the Mayas, which resulted in the book, The Two Milpas of Chan Kom, published by SUNY Press.
Christina Wasson
Project: EcoMoto: Exploratory
Research on Environmentally Friendly Design for Motorola (Class Project)
Client: Motorola
Date: 2005
Description: This research was conducted for Motorola's ECOMOTO group,
which was in the process of developing cellphones that would be targeted
at "green" consumers. Although the group had extensive technical
expertise in how to create more environmentally friendly cellphones, they
were interested in obtaining ethnographic information about the potential
audience for ECOMOTO. We conducted ethnographic research among this
community and presented our findings to Motorola.
Project: Making Mobile Experiences Meaningful (Class
Project)
Client: Microsoft
Date: 2004
Description: In order to think predictively about
design opportunities for mobile devices over the next 3-5 years, Microsoft
wished to broaden their understanding of the ways in which people were
transforming their overall mobile experiences by making them more
personally meaningful. We partnered with Microsoft to explore some of
these dynamics among young adults, conducting ethnographic research on how
18-24 year olds use and understand their mobile devices.
Project: Design of COPAA Website
Client: Consortium of Applied and Practicing Anthropology Programs (COPAA)
Date: 2004
Description: Wasson led a team that developed a
website for COPAA. First a graduate student research assistant conducted
user research with faculty in applied anthropology programs, students, and
practitioners. These findings were presented at the 2004 COPAA business
meeting, where a series of design recommendations for the website were
developed collaboratively by COPAA members. We then worked with UNT's
Multimedia Development Lab to create a website in accordance with the
recommendations.
Project: Travelers' Experiences with Concessions at
the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (Class Project)
Client: Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
Date: 2003
Description: The
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was
under increasing financial
pressures in the post-9/11 world. It sought to better understand the
needs of travelers in order to offer concessions that would be a good fit
with their needs, and thus increase revenues to the airport. We conducted
an ethnographic study of how travelers spent their time when they were
waiting for their flights. We collected information about both the
current use of concessions, and unmet needs which provided opportunities
for the airport.
Project: Evaluation of the Exhibit "Latino Life in the United
States"
Client: Field Museum and Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago
Date: 2001
Description: Ethnographic study of how visitors engaged with a
traveling exhibit that was split between two museums when it appeared in
Chicago. Researchers observed, videotaped, and interviewed visitors.
Findings included the navigational difficulties that visitors encountered;
the role of visitors' prior knowledge about Latinos; and the ways that
visitor's mental models shaped their perceptions of the exhibit.
Project: Communication and Information Technologies for the Police
Client: A large U.S.-based high technology company
Date: 1997
Description: Research to help client company develop a strategy for
expanding its presence in the market for police communication and
information technologies. Project members observed, videotaped, and
interviewed police working on the beat and in the office in several Texas
cities. Findings included an analysis of the complex trajectory of the
information that police collect, process, and hand over to the DA, and a
description of the complex mobility requirements of these professionals. I
led the research on this project when I was a project manager at E-Lab LLC,
a design consulting firm in Chicago.
Project: Group Work
Client: Steelcase
Date: 1996
Description: Ethnographic study of how employees engage in
groupwork, leading to recommendations for how Steelcase might design
office environments to support the needs, behaviors and mental models that
we observed employees displaying with regard to teamwork and
collaboration. I led this project when I was a project manager at E-Lab
LLC, a design consulting firm in Chicago.
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