Anthropology | Penn Today

Rethinking extreme environments, from human spaceflight to heat in Philadelphia

Anthropology professor Mallika Sarma of the School of Arts & Sciences is challenging what we think of as an extreme environment—beyond settings like low temperature or high altitude—and who gets studied.

5 min. read

Sierra Williams standing on a stairway in a library.

Researching cultural heritage at the Penn Museum

Aiming for a career in the museum field, Sierra Williams, a rising third-year in the College of Arts & Sciences, is working on a research study at the Penn Museum’s Penn Cultural Heritage Center through the Summer Humanities Internship Program.

5 min. read

Lynn Meskell elected Fellow to the British Academy

The honor recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding contributions to the humanities and social sciences.

3 min. read

Evidence suggesting a second mass grave of Irish railroad workers is unearthed in Downingtown

Forensic anthropologists at the Penn Museum have helped uncover the cause of death for Irish railroad workers in a mass grave site.

Katz Center Fellow Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar trains her anthropologist’s lens on ultra-Orthodox and Amish communities

Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar is a senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College in Sderot, Israel, where she teaches courses on research methods, communication, religion, and gender. She is one of 18 current Fellows at Penn’s Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. This year’s 2024–25 fellowship year is devoted to the study of Jews and health, exploring health through the intersection between bodies and systems, language and physicality, religion, and science.

2 min. read

Who, What, Why: Xiao Schutte Ke on Tibetan pastoralists and citizen science

Schutte Ke, a sixth-year linguistic anthropology doctoral candidate in the School of Arts & Sciences, explains the importance of Indigenous citizen scientists in understanding a crucial ecosystem of nomadic livestock herders on the mountainous region of the Tibetan Plateau.

3 min. read

Sosena Solomon on stage during a Q&A at the Met with two other people.

Bringing museum filmmaking into the classroom

Filmmaker Sosena Solomon taught Documentary Ethnography for Museums and Exhibitions amid filming in Africa for a Metropolitan Museum of Art redesign. The Arts of Africa galleries just reopened, including in-gallery and online films Solomon shot in 12 countries.

6 min. read

University of Pennsylvania grad follows in ancestor's footsteps 142 years later

Faruq Adger, who graduated from Penn yesterday, is following in the footsteps of his fifth-great uncle, William Adger, the first Black man to receive a degree from Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences.

A grand experiment in parenthood and friendship

Kristen Ghodsee of the School of Arts & Sciences comments on Americans and the nuclear family.

Angela Crumdy on the intersection of anthropology and education

The Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in in Penn GSE’s Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division conducts research and teaching on Cuban anthropology and education.

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