Fran Barg spent more than 30 years at Penn, conducting research that fell at the intersection of medicine and anthropology. Though she technically retired in June 2021, she plans to remain connected to Penn, to the mentoring and research that has enriched her career.
Medical anthropologist Fran Barg reflects on three decades at Penn
She spent her career studying the culture of medicine. Through collaborations with colleagues in medicine and anthropology, she’s pinpointed why it’s so crucial to see serious medical problems from both a scientific perspective and a patient one.
Two centuries old, a handwritten record of medical education
Penn Libraries is part of a multi-institution-funded project to digitize materials from early medical education. More than 1,000 Penn dissertations are now online, with the earliest dating from 1807.
As students return to campus this fall, Penn Cares will be conducting Gateway testing at the high-rise tent at Du Bois (pictured during December 2020) for all enrolled undergraduate and graduate students.
A how-to guide for Gateway testing
Penn Today provides details on the Penn Cares testing program and how undergraduate and graduate students can fulfill their Gateway testing requirements.
Remote learning affected high schoolers’ social, emotional health
Research from Angela Duckworth and colleagues found that teenagers who attended school virtually fared worse than classmates who went in person, results that held even when accounting for variables like gender, race, and socioeconomic status.
ICA Director Zoë Ryan pictured on campus in July 2021.
In Zoë Ryan, a collaborative new leader for the ICA
Zoë Ryan began her role as director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in November. Here, a look at Ryan’s time at the ICA so far and what’s ahead for the institution.
Participants in the first PennDemic, which took place in 2018, lay out a timeline of the “outbreak.” Two additional simulations have since taken place, with one more scheduled for this coming fall.
Pandemic preparedness, three years early
In a Q&A, team members behind the outbreak simulation PennDemic discuss how the exercise, now in its fourth iteration, equipped an interdisciplinary group of grad students for COVID-19 and beyond.
During the archaeobotany lesson led by Chantel White (not pictured) of the Penn Museum’s Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials—part of a two-week archaeology bootcamp—students including (from left to right) Ashley Ray, Emily Gladden, and Sarah LaPorte, learned a technique called dry sieving used to separate out organic materials like carbonized seeds, wood, and nutshell.
A fieldwork experience, no travel required
During a two-week in-person bootcamp at the Penn Museum, 11 undergrads learned basic archaeological skills in subjects from ceramics and sample-taking to archaeobotany.
ICA Director Zoë Ryan pictured on campus in July 2021.
