FACULTY & RESEARCHERS

  • Julia Alekseyeva

    ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH & CINEMA & MEDIA STUDIES


    global media; radical leftist politics; documentary film; avant-garde cinema; Japan; France; former Soviet Union; antifascism; cinema-truth; graphic essays; graphic memoir; author-illustrator; multimodal media scholarship; political modernism

  • Herman Beavers

    PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH & AFRICANA STUDIES

    20th-century African American literature; African American poetry and poetics; jazz studies; African American studies; medical humanities; literature and science; sound studies; modernism; gender studies; visual and performative ethnography

  • Francesca Ammon

    ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CITY & REGIONAL PLANNING & HISTORIC PRESERVATION

    urban planning history; built environment; American cities; urban revitalization; urban renewal; visual culture; digital public history; community-based research; historic preservation; public humanities; spatial analysis

  • Regina Austin

    PROFESSOR OF LAW, EMERITA AT PENN CAREY LAW SCHOOL & DIRECTOR OF PENN PROGRAM ON DOCUMENTARIES & THE LAW

    law-genre documentaries; visual legal advocacy; documentaries and the law; multimodal legal education; documentary video production; social justice filmmaking; documentary filmmaking

  • DANIELA BRISSETT

    ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS AT UPMC CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF PITTSBURGH, FACULTY SCHOLAR, & CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA

    pediatric and adolescent medicine; health equity; adultification of Black girls; intersectionality of racism and sexism; collaborative ethnographic methods (multimodal health ethnography via CEE affiliation)

  • Rebecca R.S. Clark

    ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PERINATAL NURSING, MIDWIFERY, & WOMEN’S HEALTH AT THE DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY & COMMUNITY HEALTH, SCHOOL OF NURSING; NURSE SCIENTIST AT PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL

    nursing; health policy; health disparities; maternal health and birth equity; multimodal ethnographic approaches to clinical research

  • Peter Decherney

    PROFESSOR OF CINEMA & MEDIA STUDIES; DIRECTOR OF PENN GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY INSTITUTE

    cinema and media studies; film history; media industries; intellectual property; documentary filmmaking; fine art photography; virtual reality; global documentary institute; multimodal film scholarship

  • Nadia Dowshen

    ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS AT PERELMAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE; DIRECTOR OF ADOLESCENT HIV SERVICES & CO-FOUNDER OF THE GENDER AND SEXUALITY CLINIC AT THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA

    urban planning history; built environment; American cities; urban revitalization; urban renewal; visual culture; digital public history; community-based research; historic preservation; public humanities; spatial analysis

  • Margit Edwards

    LECTURER IN THEATRE ARTS

    theatre arts; performance; experimental theatre; Africana theatre and performance; transcultural African dance dramaturgy; multimodal performance ethnography

  • Toorjo Ghose

    ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL POLICY & PRACTICE

    social policy; urban health; harm reduction; community-based research; multimodal ethnographic methods in social work

  • Kathleen D. Hall

    ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION & ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

    education; anthropology of education; immigration; multiculturalism; multimodal ethnographic research in schools

  • Sharon Hayes

    PROFESSOR AND CHAIR OF FINE ARTS IN THE STUART WEITZMAN SCHOOL OF DESIGN

    performance art; video installation; sound; public sculpture; history and politics; feminist activism; queer theory; public space occupation; collaborative performance; multimodal political art

  • Jasmine Johnson

    ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF AFRICANA STUDIES; SECONDARY APPOINTMENT AT THE ANNENBERG SCHOOL FOR COMMUNICATION

    afro-diasporic dance; performance studies; black movement; diaspora; black feminisms; ethnography; gentrification; urban politics; West African culture; multimodal dance ethnography

  • ALISSA JORDAN

    ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR EXPERIMENTAL ETHNOGRAPHY; AFFILIATED FACULTY IN ANTHROPOLOGY, GENDER, SEXUALITY & WOMEN’S STUDIES & GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

    multimodal cultural and medical anthropology; healing and embodiment; reproductive justice; Black birthing people; Haiti; global health; collaborative ethnographic filmmaking; audio production; illustration; participatory activism; self-healing; racial capitalism

  • Eugene Lew

    LECTURER AND DIRECTOR OF SOUND & MUSIC TECHNOLOGY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC

    music; sound design; recording; experimental and electronic music; multimodal sound ethnography

  • Ken LUM

    PROFESSOR IN STUART WEITZMAN SCHOOL OF DESIGN

    fine arts; conceptual art; photography; sculpture; painting; public art; monument and memorial studies; identity and language; Chinatown studies; multimodal public art practice

  • Kristina Lyons

    ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY

    feminist science studies; environmental humanities; legal anthropology; socio-ecological conflicts; Latin America; decolonial science; multimodal environmental ethnography

  • Jairo Moreno

    PROFESSOR OF MUSIC; GRADUATE FACULTY IN DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

    music; sound studies; history of music theory; aurality and listening; Latin American popular music; multimodal music ethnography

  • Brooke O'Harra

    ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PRACTICE IN THEATRE ARTS AND CREATIVE WRITING; CO-DIRECTOR OF THE THEATRE ARTS PROGRAM

    theatre arts; directing; performance; experimental theatre; queer archives and performance; multimodal performance and collaboration

  • Keisha-Khan Y. Perry

    ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF AFRICANA STUDIES & AFRICANA STUDIES GRADUATE CHAIR

    race and gender in the Americas; urban geography; citizenship; Black women's activism; social movements; environmental justice; Black diaspora; political geography; multimodal activist research

  • Kate POURSHARIATI

    CINEMA & MEDIA STUDIES ARCHIVIST AT PENN MUSEUM ARCHIVES

    penn Museum archives; film and media archives; ethnographic film; archival studies; multimodal archival ethnography and public engagement

  • Karen Redrobe

    PROFESSOR OF CINEMA & MEDIA STUDIES, CINEMA & MEIDA STUDIES UNDERGRADUATE CHAIR

    cinema and media studies; art history; film theory; animation; modern media; feminist film studies; multimodal film and visual studies

  • Timothy Rommen

    VICE PROVOST FOR THE ARTS & PROFESSOR OF MUSIC & AFRICANA STUDIES

    music; ethnomusicology; sound studies; Caribbean and African diaspora music; multimodal music ethnography

  • Lisa Servon

    PROFESSOR AND CHAIR OF CITY & REGIONAL PLANNING IN THE STUART WEITZMAN SCHOOL OF DESIGN

    urban studies; design; community economies; urban poverty; community and economic development; multimodal ethnographic methods in design and planning

  • Jim Skyes

    ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC

    music; ethnomusicology; sound studies; South Asian and diaspora music; Indian Ocean studies; multimodal sound ethnography

  • Deborah A. Thomas

    PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY; DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR EXPERIMENTAL ETHNOGRAPHY WITH SECONDARY APPOINTMENTS IN GENDER, SEXUALITY & WOMEN’S STUDIES & GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

    political anthropology; sovereignty; violence; afterlives of imperialism; transnationalism and diaspora; race and gender; performance; multimodal ethnography; visual anthropology; Caribbean studies; documentary film

  • Jeffrey Vadala

    DIRECTOR OF THE VIRTUAL REALITY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LAB (VRAIL) & PENN BRAIN SCIENCE CENTER; RESEARCHER AT PENN CENTER FOR NEUROAESTHETICS

    brain science; virtual and augmented reality; neuroaesthetics; anthropological archaeology; multimodal VR ethnography and experimental methods