InnoAnth Lab Membership

Cultural Anthropology, Applied Anthropology, Community Infrastructure, Texas Communities

Class Project: Research regarding the San Pedro cemetery and the oral history of those that attend. The intended aim is to gather local stories and acquire city documentation about the history of the San Pedro cemetery.

Thesis Work: Interviewing and engaging with organizations and their work in community infrastructure localized between San Antonio, Austin, and San Marcos. Primarily focused on local farming practices.
 

Linguistics\ Phonetics,- C-V Coarticulation, Socio-Cultural Studies, Peoples & Cultures of Africa

Medical Anthropology, Public Health, Women's Health, Women's Reproductive Health and Infant Health, Menstruation, Health Policy

I intend to study Women's reproductive health in my dissertation. Having lived in multiple countries, my research interest arose from my personal experience and interest. The socio-cultural aspects I have seen in my country, where women's lives are considered private, and women's health is always less prioritized than men's health, as well as having recently experienced severe postpartum depression without any treatment or support from health care providers, piqued my future interest in advancing my research career in a women's reproductive health.

I think I will learn the anthropology research methods by using the lab. In a co-working space, the lab has many potentials to offer fellow students proper methods and ideas for doing actual research, which will help me a lot. Additionally, there is a lot of equipment available in the lab, which will help me to create my class projects like podcasts or Zine. Also, as a lab staff, I will be helping other students by mentoring and guidance.

Cultural anthropology, race studies, technology

I will be learning about the making of podcasts and various visual anthropology methods. I will also coordinate a project to showcase the power of games (specifically chess-like games as veritable platforms of cultural artifacts preservation and engagement).

I am interested in Psychology, business administration, and Human Resources.

In my lab we will be researching and focusing on historical preservation of the community surrounding the San Pedro cemetery. We will be gathering qualitative data through interview style research. In order to conduct our research we will be renting media recording devices from the lab and getting involved with the community. We will be meeting in person in order to gain a more in-depth feeling and perspective of the issues and actions presented to the community.

Vulnerability, social support/social network, gender, disaster, law

As internship director, I'm envisioning building connections and relationships with community organizations and exploring partnerships with the Innovative Anthropology Lab. In the future, I'd also like to explore the possibility of a podcast to encourage applied experiences in our program.

Queer Kinship and Relationships; LGBTQ+, Feminism

My research will be covering how transgender and gender non-conforming demographics are navigating Texas, mainly in the college scene. This will mainly be looked at how they are navigating space and expression while laws and bills are implemented to ostracize them or outcast them.

Latinx Studies, medical Anthropology and ArGIS storyboards

I will be participating in a class project for locally engaged research on the preservation of Mexican Cemeteries in San Marcos. This will then be used to develop an ArcGIS storyboard about the space and information from the people and community that founded the cemetery.

Cultural Anthropology, Mexican American Studies, Cultural studies, Diversity Studies

I will be recording and documenting interview sessions with community members of San Marcos, working with families during the Dia de los Muertos event at the San Pedro cemetery as well as gathering qualitative data based on the interactions and spoken responses of the community members involved.

Linguistics, foreign languages, Italian-American culture, Mexican culture, medical anthropology, ethnographic films

I will be part of a student team researching the historic San Pedro Cemetery in San Marcos to document social relations, analyze data, and produce materials relevant to community partners and applied anthropological research practice. Over the course of the semester, I will learn how to evaluate different methods of community-based participatory research, apply those methods to plan and conduct an anthropological research project, analyze demographic and historical information using primary and secondary sources, develop research protocols and conduct, collect, manage, and analyze ethnographic data, and synthesize project data to develop an applied product.

Applied Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, Global Health, Human-centred design.

My interest is in utilizing the tools to help my learning in my class work and dissertation, such as use of visual anthropology techniques, making podcasts, posters. I'm also curious about what other team members are working on and the strategies they are using.

medical anthropology, business anthropology, STS, feminism

I am participating in the community research class working on the analysis and future production of family stories of the San Marcos Cemetery. Additionally, I will be working on my thesis.

Biological anthropology and cultural anthropology. These topics interest me the most because I think about how social media can shape relationships and even identity. In addition how humans are evolving today and are there changes happening that we don’t know about. Back on the topic of cultural anthropology how are gender roles different across the world. Most of all with the diversity within our country how does that affect the different cultures here, and how does that affect tradition?

I will be conducting research and using the lab to help with an upcoming project that focuses on the topic of eugenics. Eugenics was a movement that promoted the idea of society should reproduce those with desirable traits while avoiding reproduction of those who lacked desirable traits. My goal for this project is to be able to fully understand and present how these ideas developed within the view of anthropology and how it was presented as scientific knowledge.

Linguistic Anthropology, Word Relationship, Cognates, Cross Languaging Skills, Language Acquisition

I intend to begin researching the Purepecha word association with items present within the natural environment and word association with the same or similar items represented in art. An example would be a photograph of a star or stars and an artistic representation of the same thing. Are the same words chosen and how do these words imply cultural understanding of their environment. I will also look for the similar usage in distant cultures as a comparison.

Veterans, Latinas in the Military, Mexican American Studies, Mexico, Gender and Identity

I am currently engaged in data analysis for a border project. I am considering utilizing Atlas-ti for qualitative data analysis, as well as various recording devices to capture oral histories. I am also teaching this semester's locally engaged research class, leading the San Pedro Cemetery Project.

Currently my interest are locally engaged research and social impact-innovation.

I currently am in a course called locally engaged research and what we will do in this class is conduct anthropological research through partnerships with local communities. We will do semester long research and create a project. I will be learning how to evaluate different methods of CBR and how to apply that to plan and conduct a project. I will learn how to analyze demographic and historical information with my sources.

Medical Anthropology, Queer Studies, Gender Studies, Health Equity, SRHR, Substance abuse

This semester, I plan to conduct a workshop focused on using software for qualitative data analysis, such as Atlas.ti, NVivo, and MAXQDA. The goal is to provide members of the Innovative Anthropology lab and students with hands-on demonstrations and practical skills for analyzing qualitative data using these tools. Additionally, I will arrange workshop on citation management software, including Mendeley and EndNote, to help students and members to use referencing of academic sources ethically.
 

Linguistics/Phonetics, linguistics anthropology, embedded knowledge and name entity recognition

This semester, I am taking a design anthropology course and there is a zine project that I will use the lab for creative and multimodal methods for the project. Also, I am currently working on Named Entity Recognition, the lab can support me through access to collaborative space and digital tools.

Applied anthropology, trauma-informed pedagogy, trauma language and resiliency, institutional and organizational culture, higher education policy, research ethics, community-based research and engagement, collective identity, community narratives, belonging and exclusion, symbols and rituals, social justice, power and inequality, feminism, qualitative and ethnographic research.

This semester, I will be developing my PhD research on trauma-informed research practices in anthropology and the role institutional culture plays. I also hope to develop an applied project focused on improving research practices and policies, which connects to my work as a Texas Leadership Research Scholar (TLRS) with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and on the Graduate College Advisory Board. I’m also interested in stepping out of my comfort zone and exploring new ways to publicly disseminate my findings, such as through podcasts, vlogs, or zines.

Archaeology, historical archaeology, historic preservation, digital heritage, public archaeology, cultural heritage, digital archaeology, 3D documentation, Gaussian splatting, archaeological visualization, public access

My thesis focuses on historic preservation and public access to cultural heritage through digital documentation. I’m exploring 3D Gaussian Splatting as a methodology for preserving historic and archaeological sites and creating free, accessible digital representations that allow communities and the public to engage with their history.

Forensic anthropology, cultural anthropology. I love cultural and biological anthropology.

Class project encompassing the ongoing work with the San Pedro cemetery. Also working with the people who take care of and sponsor the cemetery. I will be going to the Día de los Muertos celebration of life, death, and community.

Menstrual (un)health; Embodied knowledge; Medical pluralism, Multimodal and sensory ethnography; Care, inequality, and wellness economies

My research explores menstrual (un)health as a lived, embodied experience shaped by intersecting biomedical, holistic, and commercial systems of care. Drawing on fieldwork in Los Angeles and Stockholm, I examine how menstruating people navigate pain, hormonal change, and everyday wellbeing across contrasting healthcare and wellness contexts, and how they make sense of their bodies amid medical uncertainty, stigma, and expanding wellness economies. Focusing on themes such as medical gaslighting, hormonal contraceptives, menstrual tracking, and holistic practices, the project investigates how bodily knowledge is produced, contested, and lived across different cultural and medical frameworks, and what this reveals about care, agency, and inequality. It employs multimodal, sensory, and participatory methods—including workshops, journaling, and visual practices—to explore how knowledge about the body is expressed, shared, and co-created in everyday life.

Behavioral anthropology, primatology, primate behavior, animal behavior, social behavior, communication, human evolution, biological anthropology, psychology, interpersonal relationships

This semester, I will be researching primate behavior, with a particular interest in gorillas. My project will involve observing gorilla behavior and developing an ethogram to categorize behaviors such as feeding, resting, movement, social interaction, and grooming. I plan to collect observational data over multiple sessions and examine how gorillas divide their time among different activities. Through this project, I hope to learn more about behavioral observation, data collection, research methods, and how primate behavior can be analyzed and interpreted.

Economic Anthropology, Organizational Anthropology, Social Work and Anthropology, Intersectional Science and Technology Studies, Intersectional Medical Anthropology, Lopsided Imaginations

This semester, I plan to use the lab to explore qualitative art based methods and how I can integrate art based methods into my research. I would like to join the lab and the lab community to explore and develop my research dissertation topic as a first year PhD cultural anthropology student!

Fun fact: As an MA student in 2021-2022, Kayli was one of the first two lab staffers and helped build the lab that we all enjoy today! Welcome back, Kayli!

Social-Cultural Anthropology, Geoarchaeology, and Bioarchaeology

We will be conducting a local research project by learning more about the history and culture at the San Pedro Cemetery in town. While we are there, we will conduct various interviews and volunteer work to get prepared for a Dia de los Muertos event happening on November 1st.

Maya, anthropology of religion, culture, theory, and field research methods

My general research interests are archaeology with a focus on ancient indigenous civilizations in Mexico. My other research interest is Latinx studies, and the importance of death culture within Mexico.

This semester my locally engaged research class will be researching the importance of segregated Mexican gravesites in the Hispanic community and the culture of the dead within San Marcos. We will also be researching the history of Mexican segregated cemeteries and the reasons they were segregated and how that had impacted the local Hispanic population within San Marcos. Our goal is to make an interactive story map on these topics to shed light on the history of the hispanic community within our city.

Religious studies, social justices, folklore, feminism, and representation in media.

I would like to put together a video series of anthropology topics in the news or a documentary about superstitions and hometown myths. I believe that if there were more options to interact with the knowledge in the anthropology field, the participation would expand.

linguistic anthropology, historic archeology, hydrology, geomorphology, ecocriticism

In my Community Research class with Professor Karla Hernandez-Swift, we will be focused on the San Pedro cemetery. To my understanding this will involve some mapping, collecting of oral histories, as well as compiling history and making it available to people on the internet through arcGIS. I am also taking public archeology this semester where we will also be involved in work at the cemetery.

My general research interests are rooted in understanding human experiences and societal structures. I'm particularly drawn to medical anthropology, given my aspirations to become a forensic pathologist.

This semester, we'll be diving into community-based qualitative research. Our goal is to understand local perspectives and experiences by directly engaging with community members. We'll be using methods like interviews and focus groups to gather rich, in depth data.

Cultural anthropology, oral history, local history

We (ANTH 3336 with Dr. Swift) will be doing an oral history project for the San Pedro cemetery here in San Marcos to ensure that the history is digitally preserved. As a location with explicit ties to the history of the marginalized latino community of Texas, it's important to make sure it's well-preserved and documented.
 

medical anthropology, forensic anthropology, biological anthropology,  and applied anthropology

This semester, I hope to continue my research regarding the nursing shortages within the United States. Currently, I am combing through the available literature in order to craft a scoping review. I also wish to use this lab to work on different class projects and, when I have a better idea of what it will be, my graduate thesis. 

Historical Archaeology, Paleoarchaeology, Irish Studies, British Studies, Scottish Studies, German Studies, Fiber Craft history

This semester in lab, I will be learning how to engage insightfully and respectfully with a local community. One of our goals for the class is to make an interactive research map with the class's accumulation of data gathered from the local community. Specifically, we are researching the history surrounding San Pedro Cemetery.

Africa, Chimpanzees

My main interests are talking to and working with people in African countries who live near endangered primates. I hope to learn what the most urgent needs are of people and what might be the main cause of endangerment to chimpanzees in those areas. I hope to work together to create realistic long-term solutions.

Anthropology of Education, Medical Anthropology, Mental health, Asian Studies, Accessibility

 I am interested in how people learn and function in educational spaces. I am passionate about helping students learn how they can be more successful in school. I am interested in growing my skills working with students in the classroom through arts based methods as a prep for my dissertation. I am hoping to work on a pilot study for my dissertation in a self-contained special education classroom.

African studies, English language hegemony, language attitudes and identity, multilingualism, post-colonialism, sociocultural and linguistic anthropology

My aim is to develop the linguistic perspective in the InnoAnth Lab and the department as a whole by emphasizing the imperative role language plays in social and cultural research. I will be utilizing my background in phonetics and sociolinguistics to develop ethnographic resources such as fieldwork and language documentation tools, methods for interviews and cross-cultural communication, and guides for digital behavioral data collection and analysis.

I am interested in Indigenous and Latinx Studies. I'm interested in questions such as: what does it mean for an indigenous community to resist erasure when literature and archaeology have historically asserted that a tribe is extinct?

I am enrolled in the Locally Engaged Research course this semester and am interested in utilizing the lab's recording equipment to create oral histories associated with the class San Pedro Cemetery project. I'd also be interested in creating a few episodes of a podcast centered on this project with accompanying visual media to give something back to participants.

Language, gender, and identity; teasing and gossip practices; childhood obesity and body image; adolescent and emerging adult health; youth and social media; ethnographic and applied research methods; contemporary U.S. and educational research settings

Narrative inquiry, pláticas, multimodal ethnography, material culture, adult development, affordances, microactivist practices, neurodiversity, ASD in higher education, ASD in workplace learning, human resources development, identity and agency, culturally responsive qualitative methods

This semester I am developing an early multimodal method using narrative inquiry and pláticas to study how neurodivergent adults with ASD make meaning of their experiences in higher education and workplace settings. I am designing a participant‑generated mask or camouflage artifact to explore identity, visibility, and protection. This work reflects my broader focus on affordances and microactivist practices, and I am deepening my understanding of affordances through adult development and HRD. I am also laying groundwork for a future longitudinal study to examine how workplace affordances evolve and how these shifts influence microactivist practices, with participants creating a new artifact to trace identity and agency over time.

My personal curiosity is mostly for cultural anthropology, feminist theory, and Latinx studies. I love exploring how diverse lived experiences shape each and every bond we may share. As a Hispanic woman, my work is driven by a genuine passion for understanding different cultures and identity dynamics. Ultimately, my goal is to center real human connection, using empathy and shared dialogue as a bridge to bring people closer together and foster true community.

This semester, I am collaborating on an applied anthropological research project centered on community based participatory methods and qualitative data collection. Working alongside my research team, I will explore how social relations and organizational dynamics function within a local population. My academic work focuses on documenting shared lived experiences, utilizing ethical oral history methods, and translating qualitative insights into external results that came from genuine social cohesion.
 

Director of the Innovative Anthropologies Lab

science and technology studies (STS); feminist STS; business anthropology, design anthropology, applied anthropology; innovation; entrepreneurship; technologies; design; futures and foresight; expertise; ignorance and agnotology; and infrastructure

Cultural Anthropology, Marriage, Gender, Kinship, Design Anthropology, STS, Screen, Interface, Virtual Ethnography

An Anthropological study of Screen and Interface in the context of Indian matrimony: Studying matrimonial (marriage) websites can reveal how design gets integrated into social norms of kinship, gender, religion, caste, and so on. I'd be looking at how technology gets socially appropriated, how it mediates intimate relations, and how 'technology in use’ is different from ‘technology in design'.

Human and primate evolution, Evolution education, Gender and Sexuality studies, Primate Behavior

I am interested in creating a podcast or using platforms like YouTube. I am also currently in a class in the biology department that involves science communication and community outreach and believe that there is a significant amount of overlap in my projects for that class this semester, and the work of the Innovative Anthropologies Lab.

sanctuary movements, place justice and restorative practices, queer/trans studies

Monuments and place names as they relate to ethnic conflict, social justice, and truth and reconciliation processes in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I am also making a documentary and writing ethnography about Chicanx drag king culture as spiritual activism with a group in San Antonio called Los MENtirosos.  
 

Masculinities, Ethnography, Sociology of Education, Sexuality, Social Movements, Qualitative Methods

The Community Research course will be accessing the lab for our research project with the San Pedro Cemetery. I also plan to use resources for my masters thesis over black women student athletes and their experiences playing sports on Division 1 athletic teams!

West African economies, merchants, veterans of colonial armies, Islam in West African society, history of theory in anthropology, pedagogic methods

Cultural anthropology, applied anthropology, qualitative research, quantitative research, ethnography, human behavior, community research, data analysis

This semester, I plan to focus on developing my research skills and learning how different methods can be used to study human behavior and culture. I am particularly interested in gaining experience with both qualitative and quantitative approaches, including collecting, analyzing, and presenting data. I also hope to explore potential research topics that could develop into a future class project or independent research project.

Public Health and Inequality, Political Economy, Drugs and Addiction, Urban Studies, Informal Labor and Economies; Incarceration; Race and Racialization 

My core research interests lie at the intersection of inequality, political economy, health, and race/racialization. Theoretically, I explore the political, economic, and legal structures that reproduce inequality and racialized health disparities in the United States, alongside how people experience and navigate these structures. This research situates U.S. racial and economic inequality in a global frame. My applied medical anthropological and public health research examines the health care and social service systems that interface with deep poverty, drug use, and violence and asks how these systems can be improved to meet the needs of structurally vulnerable populations. Before completing my PhD in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, I received an MPH from the University of Michigan in Global Health and Health Behavior and Health Equity.