Local Experiential Research Assignments for Undergrads

Local Experiential Research Assignments for Undergrads

 

Andi’s talk focuses on a course she is currently developing, “Health in Philly: Past & Present,” and on a specific kind of assignment she’s calling “local experiential research.” “Local experiential research” projects are assignments in which the research (1)  question comes from a local organization; (2) method comes from the instructor and core discipline(s) of the major; (3) process is collaborative; and (4) project starts and ends within a semester. For folks relatively new to our department or to teaching, Andi’s presentation will also touch on how course development works here at Penn.

 

Andi Johnson is an anthropologist and historian who has studied the experimental networks, practices, tools, and places of exercise physiology since the 1920s. Andi’s work has appeared in Social Studies of Science, Biosocieties, the Journal of the History of Biology, and an edited volume (2020) on Sports, Society, & Technology. An article based on her most recent project about officer selection criteria during World War II and gendered constructions of leadership in the US is currently under review with History of Social Science. Andi is proud to report that her co-author on that article, Matthew McQuillan, is a Penn undergrad. Which makes sense -- as a Senior Lecturer in our department, Andi spends most of her time teaching and mentoring undergrads. Andi received the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by Affiliated Faculty in 2020.