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Medical anthropologist Fran Barg reflects on three decades at Penn
A person standing along a black iron fence, one arm hanging over the fence. In the background are trees and a blurred out mural.

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.

Michele W. Berger

Metal artifacts in Southeast Asia challenge long-held archaeological theory
A photo of a metal artifact in the shape of a spear on a black background. In the foreground is a scale that runs from 0 to 5 cm.

An individual can create a stone tool or a pot without assistance, but creating a metal tool like the spear here is a group endeavor—and a complex one. Artifacts like this found in Thailand showed that such metal technology could be developed and exchanged using an economic model based on communities making decisions about how to participate in regional exchange systems. (Image: The Ban Chiang Project)

  • Q&A

    • Metal artifacts in Southeast Asia challenge long-held archaeological theory

    According to the Penn Museum’s Joyce White and Elizabeth Hamilton, prehistoric communities, rather than the ruling elites, in Thailand were the deciders in how to use metal resources.

    Michele W. Berger

    The pioneering career of Norman Badler
    Norman Badler standing in a lab with arms crossed.

    Norman Badler. (Image: Penn CIS)

    The pioneering career of Norman Badler

    The computer and information sciences professor retired in June. He chats about his recent ACM SIGGRAPH election and his expansive computer graphics path.

    From the Department of Computer and Information Science

    A fieldwork experience, no travel required
    Three people sitting at a table outside all wearing masks. They are around a yellow bin. They are holding tweezers and inspecting small items in the bin. In the foreground are nine styrofoam containers, some with blurred plant material.

    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.

    Michele W. Berger

    Leniqueca Welcome uses photography to explore the human experience
    Three dancers doing back bands with one leg raised on a sunlit beach.

    “The ways their bodies come together to make a continuous form against the backdrop of the water is simply poetic to me,” says Welcome. (Image: Leniqueca Welcome/OMNIA)

    Leniqueca Welcome uses photography to explore the human experience

    Welcome, a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology with specialties in urban studies and experimental ethnography, is a member of the Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts (CAMRA).

    Blake Cole

    ‘Cities in water’
    Panoramic view of the village of Gangotri at the shore of a river.

    ‘Cities in water’

    Architect and landscape architect Anuradha Mathur and anthropologist Nikhil Anand are collaborating on questions of design and human practices to create new ways of thinking about low-lying coastal cities in India and around the world.

    Kristina García

    Turning an archaeological practice on its head
    A person standing outside in front of a brick building, hands in the pockets of a gray swearing, over a black shirt and purple necklace.

    Megan Kassabaum is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania and the Weingarten Assistant Curator for North America at the Penn Museum.

    Turning an archaeological practice on its head

    In a new book, Megan Kassabaum challenges the field to take a forward-looking approach, rather than one that looks backward. She does this through the study of a Native American architectural feature called platform mounds.

    Michele W. Berger

    National myths and monuments
    Cartoon depicting Black Lives Matter images, a black fist, NO JUSTICE NO PEACE, and a statue of a horse.

    National myths and monuments

    Season two, episode four, of the OMNIA podcast “In These Times” features three faculty discussing the movement to reexamine monuments and the history and myths they symbolize, and how the public should think about the artworks in public squares.

    Connecting students with Indigenous leaders
    Tirua Sur Chile statues In Tirua Sur, Chile, carved wooden figures called chemamüll mark the graves of deceased Mapuche people. (Image: Tulia Falleti)

    Connecting students with Indigenous leaders

    People of the Land, a new Penn Global seminar taught by political science Professor Tulia Falleti, enables students to learn from Indigenous community members in South America.

    Kristina García

    To improve climate models, an international team turns to archaeological data
    map of the united states

    The final classification employs an 8x8 kilometer grid scale, large from an archaeological perspective but which allows for consistency. The four maps here show the effect of grid size on data visibility. (Image: Chad Hill, published in PLOS ONE)

    To improve climate models, an international team turns to archaeological data

    The project, called LandCover6k, offers a new classification system that the researchers hope will improve predictions about the planet’s future and fill in gaps about its past.

    Michele W. Berger