Author: Ruth Tilahun

Delaney Kenney, HC 25′

The Franklin Institute: Youth Programs

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork

Faculty Advisor: Monique Scott and Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: The Franklin Institute

Field Supervisor: Carly Netting

Praxis Poster:

HART_DELANEYKENNEY_REVISED

 

Further Context:

This spring, I had the pleasure of working at The Franklin Institute (TFI), Philadelphia’s science and technology museum. TFI was founded in 1824 by Samuel Vaughan Merrick and William H. Keating in order to promote the love of science and technology through experiential, hands-on learning. During my time, I worked primarily with the Youth Programs team, but I also had the amazing opportunity to speak with a wide range of TFI professionals. I learned more about how science museums function as a collaborative space dedicated to inspiring the scientist in us all. 

The Franklin Institute has three main youth programs that I engaged with: PACTS (Partnership for Achieving Careers in Technology and Science), STEM Scholars, and Franklin Ambassadors. PACTS is a program that serves 60 middle school students by organizing biweekly scientific workshops. I assisted with the Science Investigators sector of this program in which the students get to learn about different areas of science in every workshop. The coolest workshop I assisted with was helping students to build a robotic arm!  

STEM Scholars serves high school students in weekly workshops conducted by partner organizations, such as the University of Pennsylvania and Saint Joseph’s University. Students are split by grade and each grade comes into the Museum once a week for their designated workshop. I engaged with the sophomore class and got the opportunity to both mentor students and assist professional researchers with the implementation of their programming. My favorite workshop was measuring the neuronal response of venus fly traps!  

I spent the majority of my time with the Franklin Ambassadors. The Ambassadors are a high school leadership cohort who do everything from mentoring younger students to being extra hands for museum events to attending weekly career and college readiness seminars. I loved getting to forge close relationships with a number of Ambassadors and see them grow throughout the semester both personally as well as in their leadership roles! My main projects with the Ambassadors were to create a seminar for their weekly series and to organize a laboratory field trip for them. My seminar was part of their career and college readiness series and focused on tips and tricks for resume-building. The lab visit I arranged was to my own thesis laboratory at Bryn Mawr! I brought the Ambassadors into my lab and exposed them to both electroencephalography (EEG) technology and virtual reality. I ran them as mock-participants for my thesis study, which revolves around investigating the neural correlates of deception utilizing virtual reality, and also taught them how to be study administrators themselves. It was such a fun experience to see them become neuroscience researchers for the day!  

My main project as an intern was to develop an original community outreach project. I was given the task of designing a set of activities related to a scientific topic of my choice that had to engage all ages for anywhere from 15 seconds to 15 minutes. I chose to create a project based around the neuroscience behind illusions, to function as an extension of TFI’s optical illusions exhibit. I collaborated with both the Design and Curriculum Development teams to produce a set of 8 activities with corresponding scientific explanation cards. It was such an interesting experience to see the process through which multiple different departments work together to create a project. I presented my activities alongside Ambassadors at Smith Playground’s Play-a-Palooza, and it was such a rewarding experience to see community members enjoy them so much! My project will serve as TFI’s outreach program for the next year.  

Reflecting on my time at TFI, I learned so much about how science museums function as well as the ways in which museums leverage their resources to best serve their communities. This experience has greatly prepared me for my post-graduation position as a social impact fellow at the Museum of Science in Boston. I am so grateful for my mentors as well as my students for welcoming me into TFI and helping me develop my skills as a science museum educator! 

Eli Cole, BMC 25′

Library Internship: Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork

Faculty Advisor: Monique Scott and Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Field Supervisor: Anthony DiGiovann

Praxis Poster:

HART_EliCole_REVISED

 

Further Context:

For my Museum Studies Fieldwork course, I had the opportunity to work at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in their library department, learning about several different aspects of the work involved in running a special collections library. I worked with Anthony DiGiovanni, the Director of Cataloging Services at the Historical Society, to catalog, page, and reshelve books, assist with front-facing work at the reference desk, and work on larger reorganizing and inventorying projects in the library stacks. 

Over the course of this experience, I learned how to use different library classification systems– the Historical Society uses several, including the Dewey Decimal System, Library of Congress classification system, and their own proprietary system–and navigate the library’s vaults to find resources. I also learned how to use MARC records to catalog a book and update it in the library’s holdings. This involved both adding it to the Historical Society’s system and exporting it to UPenn’s online catalog, which hosts HSP’s catalog data and makes it available to the public. While shadowing Anthony at the reference desk, I learned about the kinds of questions patrons often ask when they come in to do research, and what resources– online databases, research guides, HSP’s catalog– I could point them towards to help them find what they were looking for. 

One of the bigger projects I was involved with during this experience was moving a collection of books back into the Historical Society’s stacks. These books were some of HSP’s oldest collections, with books dating back to the 1500s, and had previously been held at the special collections library next door, the Library Company of Philadelphia, as part of a longstanding agreement. Because the terms of the agreement had recently changed, this collection is now being brought back into the Historical Society’s stacks. I helped with the move, and with shifting and reorganizing books on some of the library shelves to make space for the returning collection. As we brought the books back, I helped inventory them, checking them against both the Library Company and the Historical Society’s catalogs to make sure they were properly classified and accounted for. There were frequent complications, so this project required a lot of time and attention to detail. 

This experience has given me a greater understanding and appreciation of all the different kinds of library work and the ways they connect to each other. I feel like I have learned a lot about all the work that goes into running a special collections library, and this experience has made me excited to learn more about library and archival work in the future. 

Lily Petteway, BMC 25′

Educational Research and
Interpretation at Harriton House

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork

Faculty Advisor: Monique Scott and Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: Harriton House 

Field Supervisor: Laura Carpenter 

Praxis Poster:

HART_LilyPetteway_Revised

 

Further Context:

My work at Harriton this semester was detail-oriented and research-focused, contributing to the house’s current goal of reinterpretation for its various visitors. Historical homes are often small, intimate spaces, and Harriton certainly falls into these categories. Located just a few minutes from Bryn Mawr’s campus, Harriton House has been standing since 1704 and is best known as the residence of Charles Thomson, Secretary to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789. Harriton highlights the critical role that local histories play in shaping historical engagement, interest, and education. 

My work centered upon Hannah Harrison Thomson, the inheritor of the Harriton property and Charles Thomson’s wife. After his political career that took Hannah from city to city, Thomson decided to retire the two to Harriton. My goal was to find as much information on Hannah as possible, whether that be through memorandum books or epistolary commentary on Charles’ political affairs. This had me not just digging through Harriton’s archives, but also visiting Philadelphia-based institutions like the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, and the Independence National Historical Park Library. I sifted through and transcribed any letter I could find that was even tangentially related to Hannah, often having to read between the lines given how much historical commentary is focused on Charles instead. This was quiet, independent work but with a scavenger-hunt edge. Hannah’s letters were frequently witty, irreverent, and full of personality, which made highlighting her story at Harriton an exciting undertaking. 

Towards the end of the semester, I began compiling a Girl Scouts “Playing the Past” activity curriculum for girls aged 9-11 visiting Harriton. This ended up being more challenging than I had imagined as I had to think about how I wanted to interpret and synthesize my research for a younger audience. For the badge, girls visit a historical site and step into the shoes of a woman related to the site. I wanted to include a mix of activities that showed the potential limitations for late-eighteenth-century women but also show how women could still carve out spheres of influence for themselves; after all, Hannah’s life experience was so variant given her sudden shift out of the urban, social sphere into the homestead setting of Harriton. Letter/diary writing, mock portrait making, and exploring the house to locate Hannah’s influences were some activities I incorporated. 

Something I came to appreciate throughout my time at Harriton was how community-oriented the site is. The house is very receptive to outside visitors, nearby residents, volunteers, donors, and members that I frequently got to interact with. Harriton has become a staple of the surrounding community and serves not only to preserve that community’s past, but also consider its future. By hosting numerous events that celebrate Lower Merion’s history, running children’s programs, and even simply caring for the goats so beloved by visitors, Harriton fosters engagement that keeps local stories alive. 

Ella Evans, BMC 25′

Archival Inventorying at the Fabric Workshop and Museum

Semester: Spring 2025

Praxis Course: HART 420 Museum Studies Fieldwork

Faculty Advisor: Monique Scott and Sylvia Houghteling

Field Site: Fabric Workshop and Museum

Field Supervisor: Justin Hall

Praxis Poster:

HART_EllaEvans_FWMPoster

 

Further Context:

This past semester, I had the wonderful opportunity to intern with the Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) in their museum archives. Marion ‘Kippy’ Boulton Stroud founded the workshop in 1977, and the institution has collaborated with artists to create contemporary art in a variety of media ever since. The workshop pushes artists to move outside of their comfort zones or preferred media and embrace innovation and possibility. From its onset, the FWM has collected the contemporary art produced during its artist-in-residence collaborations, which means that they have a robust and multifaceted collection. I focused on several different projects during my internship which were geared towards inventorying and cataloguing parts of the collection in order to increase public accessibility. 

My main project examined the accessioned object records in CollectionSpace, FWM’s online records management software. My role was to evaluate the presence and quality of the images in the over 1100 objects accessioned into the FWM’s permanent collection and create an inventory spreadsheet. This spreadsheet will be used in the future to ensure that all of the accessioned objects in the collection have high-quality photographs, so that each object’s information can be uploaded to FWM’s public browser site. This future site will assist researchers and the public in learning about the diverse collection of art at the museum. During my internship, my supervisor used the spreadsheet to locate items of clothing in the collection that had low-quality or absent photos and then scheduled photography sessions with the staff photographer to begin the process of building the index of website-worthy photos. I assisted with arranging t-shirts, robes, and dresses during these photography sessions, and it was so cool to be hands-on with the artwork. 

Besides the photo inventory project, I worked to catalogue the materials in several different Artist Boxes in the FWM’s collection. These Artist Boxes contained process materials from the stay of contemporary artists during their Artist-in-Residences at the FWM. Through my cataloguing, I created a visual guide of the materials in the Artist Boxes for future use by researchers. This project let me hone my cataloguing skills and I gained practice describing collection objects and formatting museum documents. 

Additionally, the FWM attended the IFPDA print fair in New York City in March. Prior to the fair, I assisted my supervisor with conducting condition reports of objects, small conservation measures for objects, and packing objects for shipment to New York. I learned important art handling skills from my supervisor during this experience, understanding the intricacies of bubble wrap and frame tape. 

Reflecting on my diverse experiences at the FWM, I learned so much about the role of archives and registrars within small museum institutions. This experience solidified my desire to pursue a role in museum archives upon graduation. Ultimately, I am so grateful to all the FWM staff to being so supportive through my internship. I’m excited to see the new projects that the FWM decides to embark on! 

Peyton Davis, BMC ’26

Drawing Boundaries: The Politics of Sovereignty in a Globalized World

Semester: Spring 2025

Faculty Advisor: Elizabeth Corredor

Field Site: New Lines Institute

Field Supervisor: Kallie Mitchell

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_REVISED_ Peyton_Davis_Praxis Poster

 

Further Context:

One of my first assignments for my Praxis course, “Drawing Boundaries: The Politics of Sovereignty in a Globalized World,” I assisted my field supervisor, Kallie Mitchell, on research for a 40-page report. She authored this report on gender-based violence in Tigray, Ethiopia in order to present to U.K. Parliament in March. I helped to find, cross-verify, and categorize facts and testimony related to these crimes. It was eye-opening and sobering to read of these experiences. I learned that, often, sovereignty of territory and sovereignty of body go hand-in-hand. Systemic gender-based violence was used as a method of “claiming” land and women.

The culminating, capstone element of my course was authoring an independent report. At first, I only had a broad idea of what I wanted to do—discuss gender dynamics in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. Through my own research and feedback from my supervisor, I eventually decided to focus on one specific area. Rojava is a semi-autonomous region in Syria led by a predominately Kurdish government. I chose to analyze the gendered strengths of their democratic model and position it in relation to the fall of the Assad regime. The most interesting challenge in writing this was determining my audience. Unlike writing an essay for a professor, a published piece for a think tank is meant for policymakers and the general public alike.

One major lesson learned from this experience is how much a policy paper evolves over the course of its creation. My original idea underwent many changes as I worked through the process and received feedback. I learned that there is no need for attachment to the first direction I envisioned for the report—in fact, the truly critical writing will naturally evolve as one uncovers more information and develops an argument. Writing sometimes flows, and other times, it’s a frustrating uphill climb. The climb is the point in which I have grown the most!

Katelyn Hung, BMC ’27

(Un)Equitable Development in Chinatown

Semester: Spring 2025

Faculty Advisor: DJ Ferman-Leon

Field Site: Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation

Field Supervisor: Sophia Wan

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_Revised Katelyn Hung - (Un)Equitable Development in Chinatown

 

Further Context:

As a Cities Major with minors in Economics and Data Science, my coursework has consistently explored the causes and consequences of gentrification that disproportionately impact low-income and racial minority communities. This academic foundation sparked my curiosity about the mechanisms for mitigating and preventing gentrification. For my Praxis course, I was fortunate enough to find a role at the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC), an organization whose affordable housing and economic revitalization initiatives allowed me to explore place-based strategies for resisting displacement in ethnic neighborhoods.

As a Neighborhood Planning Intern, my responsibilities ranged from creating infographics about neighborhood programs to more in-depth analysis projects. In this role, I directly supported PCDC’s community development initiatives by contributing research and spatial analysis that informed ongoing planning efforts. One of my tasks consisted of taking pictures of an affordable housing development being constructed in Chinatown. Through this, I began to understand the extensive timeline and the various actors involved in a single housing development project. I also began conducting demographic and economic research through PolicyMap, a software that maps federal data to reveal the nuanced spatial patterns within a given neighborhood like Chinatown. The data I collected helped inform the permanent affordable housing program (via a Community Land Trust) that PCDC is currently planning. My most extensive task was developing a GIS spatial report that identified all the available parking supply in Chinatown. This project was inspired after I reviewed past PCDC surveys where consumers and business owners emphasized the lack of convenient parking. After a conversation with my supervisor, I found out that PCDC had no internal parking study that was up to date, much less one that mapped out parking supply. The Parking Study was the most exciting project for me because I was able to apply my GIS skills to a professional planning setting.

To identify the wider implications of my role at PCDC, Professor Ferman-Leon assigned me readings to explore the broader context of gentrification through histories of urban redevelopment and racial capitalism. Our conversations were enriching and extended my understanding of how neighborhood-level interventions intersect with larger systems of power, finance, and race. His background in community organizing offered great insight into the challenges and opportunities of equitable development.

Overall, this Praxis course was deeply formative for both my academic growth and professional development. I have gained a thorough understanding of the timeline, processes, and partnerships necessary to make a development project come to life. I also learned how long-term planning efforts must respond to the shifting dynamics of a neighborhood over time. This experience offered insight into the role of planning within nonprofit and social justice sectors, and I’m extremely fortunate for the opportunity to learn in a setting closely aligned with my academic and professional goals.

Sally Jamrog, BMC 27′

ARCH B425 Praxis III: Independent Study

Semester: Spring 2025

Faculty Advisor: Wu Xin

Field Site: Philadelphia Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Field Supervisor: Katherine Blanchard

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_SallyJamrog PraxisPoster

 

Further Context:

This spring semester, I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with my friend and fellow Bryn Mawr student Ellie Toyama (‘26) at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) in their Near East collection archives under the supervision of the Fowler/Van Santvoord Keeper of Near Eastern Collections, Katy Blanchard.

Over the course of these last four months, Ellie and I traveled into Philadelphia from Bryn Mawr two times a week to work on inventorying and digitizing the material in the Near East collection from the site of Beth Shemesh, Israel. These artifacts were excavated in the 1930s by Haverford College and accessioned into the University of Pennsylvania’s collection in 1961, mainly consisting of pottery sherds, bits of ceramic or larger incomplete vessels, but we occasionally worked on stoneware from the same site. We looked at lamps, spindle whorls, loom weights, juglets, Cyprian milk bowls, and grinding stones among many other types of objects. We would work on this project a shelf at a time, taking down 1-2 boxes of material a session, carefully making sure each item in the box corresponded with its location status through the Penn Museum inventory software EMu, and photographing items via “shot-down” or “shot-on” camera angles. For more two-dimensional objects such as smaller pot sherds without much curvature, we used “shot-down” photography, during which photos are taken from an overhead angle. Vessels for which simply turning them over would not provide as much information as would be helpful for a researcher looking at these images online, we would employ the “shot-on” technique, during which the camera is placed on a tripod or held freehand, allowing for more photographic, dimensional perspective on a given object. Evaluating each of these items for photography required forethought, especially for items which were significantly more incomplete than others which also might require props to allow for correct orientational positioning. After each session of photography, we would then rehouse and relabel the objects we brought out of storage, assisting with the general upkeep and maintenance of the archive. We found several “unaccounted for” objects over the course of our project, allowing previously lost material to be logged correctly into EMu, and ended up fully digitizing the Beth Shemesh collection!

Katy also had us help out around archives with any other projects that came up during our working hours. We frequently helped her pull material for different researchers and classes as well as set up safe viewing locations for objects. Katy additionally took us on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Morgan Library in New York City, on which we got to meet the curators of their exhibition highlighting their cylinder seal collection and a couple curators specializing in rare books and manuscripts. I learned an incredible amount about the processes of curation and what goes into thinking about how material should be displayed in a museum setting as well as what a museum ends up having a final say on. It was also valuable to me to be able to compare the differences between the Morgan Library’s way of keeping materials as opposed to the Penn Museum (a primarily purchased vs. primarily excavated collection).

In addition to the fieldwork I engaged in on-site with Ellie, I developed my skills in art historical and archaeological research and observation through practicing formal analysis on a Khirbet Kerak Ware pot from the Near East collection archives, journaling every week on its formal qualities and materiality as well as practicing various methods of archaeological sketching. Sketching accomplished a similar role in broadening my ability to think critically about these objects as our photography fieldwork assignments in that it encouraged me to consider what features of an object convey its most relevant information. The additional readings and research I also completed on Khirbet Kerak Ware and materiality will culminate in a final paper I will submit at the end of finals week this semester which will also encompass my Penn Museum case study observations.

This whole experience has vastly broadened my knowledge on the behind-the-scenes processes of museum work and has given me an incredible skill set to take into future museum work. I have also learned to more critically and closely observe archaeological artifacts, synthesizing methods of art historical formal analysis with the more scientific, deductive eye often employed in the field of archaeology and plan to continue to develop these skills throughout my time at Bryn Mawr, double majoring in History of Art & Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology.

Anne Nguyen, BMC 26′

Experiential Learning for STEM

Semester: Spring 2025

Faculty Advisor: Leslie Cheng

Field Site: The Paradigm Forum GmbH

Field Supervisor: E. Tabi Haller-Jordan

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_Anne Nguyen_Praxis PosterREVISED.pdf

 

Further Context:

This past semester, I worked with Tabi, my filed supervisor, as a research intern on our ongoing project of humanizing technologists at The Paradigm Forum GmbH. This project was a co-creation of Tabi and the intern team started last summer and this Praxis was a continuation of the project since Tabi and I were both very excited to explore it further.

At the beginning of the semester, I explored the barriers and pathways to experiential learning regarding STEM and the way to engaging STEM talents learners in active learning. This led me to develop a learning & reflective journal for college students, particularly in STEM, that accompanies them through their time in college. The journal is created with a goal of enhancing students’ self-awareness and introspection in their values, identity, skills, learning, growth, visions or the lack thereof and encouraging mindsets and habits for change-making.

Some of the themes in the journal currently are values, connection, courage, and mindfulness. This journal uses reflective prompts, such as “When have you taken a risk even though there was no guarantee of desired outcomes?”, provocative texts from books and speeches, concept introductions of helpful practices like loving kindness, exercises targeting areas such as risk-taking and expanding comfort zone, and goals tracker for intentional habit building. This is still a work in progress and is being reiterated to incorporate feedback from students and staffs. I’d like to share a prototype of this journal with more students and staffs to gain different perspectives on whether and how this journal would be helpful for students.

Because I am a math student, questions emerge about how to connect math and humanizing technologists. Since math is commonly considered a very technical subject, which it is indeed, I explored different ways it could be understood and practiced as a humanized subject. Tabi and I had many discussions about what a moral dimension of mathematics, or Moral Mathematics, could look like. Eventually, I created a framework of moral mathematics, an approach and way of understanding and using math considering that impacts of math on humans and society, including 1) life through the mathematical lens, 2) process skills in mathematics, and 3) ethical implications of mathematics. We believe that this framework can be introduced and applied to various technical subjects to better attract students, engage students, and encourage students to think civically, interdisciplinarily, and innovatively. I would love to work with professors and teachers and find ways to implement this framework into math and technical classrooms, whether that is through incorporating experiential learning into the lesson plans or creating spaces students can collaborate and innovate.

I told Tabi that through this experience, I have become so much more interesting and knowledgeable as a person, not just from doing research and reading, but also from observing how she thinks, leads, and communicates. I became more a more intentional story-teller and approached communicating with others from a place of values and visions. And since this internship was a co-creation and learning partnership, I was pushed to be self-motivated and take initiative to steer the direction and assignments of the project. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to not just be hands-on, but to have agency and “skin-in-the-game”, and get to let my creativity roams freely and to learn so much from doing the work and from my supervisor.

Pragya Silwal, BMC 27′

Evidence for Measuring & Shaping Policy

Semester: Evidence for Measuring & Shaping Policy

Faculty Advisor: Shannon Mudd

Field Site: Econsult Solutions Inc.

Field Supervisor: Cassandra Brown

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_Pragya Silwal_Revised

 

Further Context:

This Spring, I worked as a Research Analyst at Econsult Solutions, a boutique consulting firm in Philadelphia. As an Economics major with minors in Cities and Data Science, the intersection of urban policies and economics is deeply exciting to me.

I designed this course specifically with the intention of learning how data-driven insights are produced and how policy recommendations are formed within the domain of urban economics. During my time at ESI, I’ve been able to achieve this while working on projects for a broad range of clients throughout the U.S. . I’ve been involved in tasks ranging from collecting and visualizing data, creating GIS maps, to reading and consolidating policy pieces and background literatures for the diverse clientele.

My favorite part has been learning to use ArcGIS and working with spatial data. During my first week at work, I was shown a map and asked if I had any ideas around it. Latching on to that moment, I began experimenting with GIS and ended up producing multiple maps for different projects. Additionally, I also have been able to get to the more theoretical part of Economics while conducting economic impact analysis for clients and learning to use corporate software like Implan.

This semester has been a wonderful exposure to the world of economic consulting – what the day-to-day activities look like, and the skillsets needed to prepare for it. On top of that, ESI has been an amazing place to work, thanks to both the scope of their work and the office community. I’m grateful to have had this learning opportunity.

Emily Chau, BMC ’26

Autism, Language, and Construction of Gender

Semester: Spring 2025

Faculty Advisor: Dustin Albert

Field Site: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)’s Center for Autism Research (CAR)

Field Supervisor: Meg Lyons

Praxis Poster: 

PIS_Emily_Chau_PraxisPoster

 

Further Context: 

In my opinion, the creation of this independent study course was a little unorthodox. Last summer, I did a social work-related internship to explore a social work career path with the help of the Career and Civic Engagement Center’s Beyond Bryn Mawr summer internship program. However, in the Fall 2024 semester I took multiple classes that made me realize that, even though I intend to pursue social work, I deeply enjoyed learning about the behind-the-scenes research work, learning about data science, and exploring different study designs. I wanted to contribute my personal experience of having a sibling with autism, with my research interests in gender diversity, and the data science skills I learned in class into a summer internship. I saw that another student who was part of the Beyond Bryn Mawr program worked at CAR over the summer. Because I am from the area and knew about CHOP’s autism resources through my sibling, I was thrilled to apply. Based on my experience with my last internship, I wanted a more in-depth and longer internship to make deeper connections academically and socially, so I expanded my internship from just a summer internship to a spring and summer internship, leading me to create a Praxis Independent Study course. This way, I could be supported by my internship supervisor as well as a faculty member from the college when exploring my research and career interests.

During this internship, I transcribed audio samples for three studies. The first study examines similarities and differences between the way children and adolescents with autism speak and the way their peers without autism speak. The second study investigates behavioral sex differences in those with and without autism while tracking the gender development of those with gender diverse identities. The third study examines the impact of a social skills workshop intervention on adolescents with autism. Throughout the internship, I was able to observe in-person visits where I watched participants get interviewed, assessed for a potential autism diagnosis, and complete other research tasks. These observations were supported by informational materials and meetings with members of the lab. Furthermore, I worked on a literature review with my faculty advisor about the link between autism and gender diversity which helped contextualize and explain the practices and rationale employed at the lab.

One small aspect of this internship I enjoyed was learning the different quirks of the transcription software. For example, BMC is an acronym, but it must be transcribed as ~BMC since each letter is pronounced. However, an acronym like CHOP would be transcribed as @CHOP to denote that the acronym is pronounced like a word rather than separate letters. It was like learning a new language!

Overall, I am grateful to have worked at CAR during my spring semester, and I am excited about the new opportunities that will emerge when I return for the summer.  Given the current political climate and rhetoric around gender and disability, I am especially motivated to continue this work and serve this population both through this internship and through the other opportunities that this internship may open for me as I enter the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research next semester.