Category: Spring Semester 2026

Josie Internicola, BMC ’28

Praxis Course: Thorne School Practicum

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Jodie Baird

Community Partner: The Phebe Anna Thorne School

Praxis Site Supervisor: Jodie Baird

Praxis Poster:

PSYCH 215 Josie_Internicola_Tools to touch on

 

Further Context:

This semester, I had the wonderful opportunity to work in the Phebe Anna Thorne school’s mixed-age afternoon preschool class. Each week, I spent three hours with this group of children, whose ages ranged from four to five years old, assisting them in navigating social interactions and difficult emotions through play. I also supported their teachers in organizational tasks such as managing scheduling transitions and classroom materials. During the seminar portion of the Thorne School Practicum: Bridging Research and Practice course, my classmates and I were exposed to fresh perspectives on child development and early childhood education. As a class, we discussed our views on the material and how we could apply it to our experiences working with young children. At our placements, we were encouraged to observe and process our interactions with the Thorne students through the lens of our newly acquired knowledge.

The Thorne philosophy is centered around fostering independence and prosocial behavior in its students through play. As our poster suggests, teachers at Thorne take an autonomy-supportive approach in guiding the children’s development of such skills. Therefore, Thorne classrooms are child-centered spaces in which the educators take on the role of “model peers,” joining the children in their learning process beside them, instead of above them. We encourage the students to explore the bounds of their environment and experiment through risky play, ask questions about their conduct instead of prohibitive commands, and more.

As a future elementary school teacher, I feel beyond thankful for this experience. Among many things, this course has taught me to find my authentic voice as an educator. Each week, I look forward to seeing my students and the lovely, warm teachers in the mixed-age classroom. I hope to create a classroom environment filled with as much joy and delightful chaos as theirs in the future. It is such a privilege to take a course centered around doing what I love most, connecting with children and supporting them in their development. Thank you to everyone— my classmates, professor, and placement teachers, for contributing to this wonderful, engaging course.

Maddie Raymond, BMC ’26

Praxis Course: HART 420: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner: The American Philosophical Society

Praxis Site Supervisor: Cathy Person

Praxis Poster:

HART_MaddieRaymond

 

Further Context:

I had the privilege of working for the last semester at the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States. My role was with the education programs team, where I developed an original curriculum on responsible generative AI usage through the lens of history. To do so, I utilized the APS’s vast History of Science collection, scaffolding my curriculum around a document on ethical communication from the collection of Warren McCulloch, one of the early scientists thinking about AI in the mid-20th century. In addition to developing this curriculum, I participated as a full member of the APS education programs team, attending meetings on days I was in-office and events such as research presentations and the April APS member meeting. I am so grateful for this
opportunity to explore and establish myself in the museum education field.

Ella Horvath, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: Museum Studies Fieldwork Seminar

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Monique Scott

Community Partner: Woodmere Art Museum

Praxis Site Supervisor: Amy Gillette

Praxis Poster:

HART_EllaHorvath_compressed

 

Further Context:
This semester I was a curatorial intern at the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. I had never been to the Woodmere prior to this semester, but had heard of and briefly met my site supervisor, Amy Gillette, from her collections research at the Barnes and background in medieval art history. Initially, I was excited to work with her and learn more about a local institution with which I was not previously familiar. My major goals were to gain collections research experience and get a better sense of the comprehensive history of Philadelphia arts movements and institutions from the nineteenth century to present day. Woodmere features art and artists of Philadelphia across two nineteenth-century mansions and outdoor wonders, including larger-than-life installations, masterful sculptures, and thoroughly tended gardens. Charles Knox Smith Hall houses the original nineteenth century collection of the Woodmere’s founder, a massive two-level gallery and events space with a balcony, studios for classes and workshops, and rotating exhibitions like the current retrospective Syd Carpenter: Planting in Time, Place, Memory. I met Amy here every two weeks in her office, but got to conduct most of my work on art in the newly opened Maguire Hall, which features twentieth and twenty-first century collections, and an extensive downstairs jewelry vault.

One of my most exciting curatorial projects was helping Amy and catalogue contributors prepare for a retrospective on the late Philadelphia artist Moe Brooker, to open in September 2026. I helped flesh out the existing
bibliography by contacting galleries from around the country inquiring into details and documents for their solo exhibitions of Brooker’s work from 1977 to as recent as 2019 (and, in cases when exhibition catalogues seemed less likely, I was able to verify their nonexistence). I organized these findings into a spreadsheet to assist current catalogue contributors, including Professor Scott and Bryn Mawr Presidential Fellow Annalise Ashman. As part of this work on the “Moe Brooker Team,” I got to attend an oral history of about ten people facilitated by Leslie King-Hammond. This included Amy, people in Education, the director of the museum, and many people who knew Brooker personally, like Peter Paone, an artist in his 90s who made the fabulous Snow People series on display in the Woodmere, and Katherine Stanek, a Philly galerist with whom I had gotten in touch regarding solo exhibition catalogues. This was one of the most incredible experiences of my semester, and got me thinking about the potential
of “oral art histories” to shape museum displays, inform curatorial and catalogue-writing decisions, and inspire conversation that keeps artists alive in work and memory. Because many curators and art historians are friends, classmates, colleagues, teachers, and collaborators with artists, their ability to animate and emotionally revive the distinct zeitgeist of the Philadelphia art scene in the 1950 to the present is so valuable. It is also such a rare experience for me, since most of the work I study is medieval or antique, and has no artist biography or cohort or movement attached.

Amy put a lot of trust in me to do this work, and I am so grateful for it! This internship made me feel so connected to Philadelphia art and artists, through my literal contact with the art, research in Center City, work
uploading pieces to the new website, and on-site museum events. Often, ethical discourse during Museum Studies leaves me discouraged about entering the field. The Woodmere is a great example of how a museum can represent, involve, and serve the community. I look forward to seeing the Moe Brooker retrospective next semester as an example of this work, which I am so grateful to have been a part of!

Cade Fanning, HC ’26

Praxis Course:  HART B420: Museum Studies Praxis Seminar 

Semester: Spring 2026 

Faculty Advisor/Professor:   Monique Scott 

Community Partner:   Historic Annapolis    

Praxis Site Supervisor:   Katie Turer 

Praxis Poster:  

HART_CadeFanning_compressed

 

Further Context:  

This semester, I interned at Historic Annapolis, where I researched the free and enslaved Black craftspeople who worked on the James Brice House. James Brice was a wealthy Annapolitan planter, a prominent local politician, and a member of the city’s elite during and after the Revolutionary War. Between 1767 and 1774, he oversaw the construction of his mansion in downtown Annapolis. Historic Annapolis secured the site in 2014, and embarked on a painstaking restoration process in 2016 that continues to this day. 

I was tasked with researching the free and enslaved Black craftspeople who built the house in order to create an interactive touchscreen exhibit. Unlike most contemporary American elites, James Brice was a meticulous record-keeper who recorded nearly every transaction in account books and inventories that survive to this day, creating a wealth of primary sources that is further supplemented by the ads he placed in the local newspaper when a bound worker escaped. Much of my research involved sifting through these primary sources and gleaning information about the craftspeople’s work and lives.  

I also conducted significant secondary research in order to situate my primary findings within the context of the era. I attended lectures and explored exhibitions, articles, and books on the topics of colonial craftsmanship and enslaved craftspeople. Deepening my understanding of contemporary systems of free and enslaved craftsmanship allowed me to connect the Brice House laborers to the system of social hierarchy and labor in which they operated. Historic Annapolis’s Comprehensive Interpretation Plan for Brice House presented the organization’s goals for the site and the message they wished to share with visitors, and I focused on connecting my research to that plan. 

I discovered that apprenticing enslaved laborers to skilled indentured or convict craftspeople was a common practice among wealthy enslavers like James Brice: it increased the enslaved person’s value and allowed their enslaver to rent out their labor and collect their wages. In short, enslavers viewed it as an investment in their property. However, enslaved craftspeople used their skills to develop their craft and redefine themselves as individuals, not as assets to their enslavers. Their skills allowed them to improve their socioeconomic standing, sometimes even obtaining their freedom and establishing generational wealth.  

I used my research to develop a plan for an interactive touchscreen exhibit for the Brice House. Allowing visitors to interact with the stories and accomplishments of the free and enslaved Black craftspeople who built the house reflects the core tenets of the participatory museum—it transforms the museum space from a place of presentation to a place of dialogue. The interactive exhibit involves visitors in their stories and connects them to the history of not just the house, but also to the people who built it. 

Catherine Utzinger, BMC ’26

Praxis Course: Praxis Independant Study

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Jamie Taylor

Community Partner: JackLeg Press

Praxis Site Supervisor: Jennifer Harris

Praxis Poster:

PIS Catherine R Utzinger

 

Further Context:

During the JackLeg Press Internship, I had the opportunity to work witha cohort in order to review submissions, network, learn the review and editing process, as well as how an independent publishing firm operates. During the semester, I was responsible for reading submissions that were around 30-40 page submissions through JackLeg’s submission portal and ranking each submission on a scale from 1-5. I then wrote 350-word reviews to justify my ranking and explain whether I thought that each submission should proceed in the submission process. If accepted, the author of the piece would submit their full manuscript for further review.
Every few weeks, we had team meetings with Jennifer Harris and the rest of the JackLeg editorial team to discuss techniques and build our critical skills.

We also got to attend the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in Baltimore where we tabled for JackLeg and had the opportunity to speak with authors that the press has published! I also got to network with other independent presses at the Bookfair and exchanged
information with many different people. Listening to panels and readings such as Carmen Maria Machado reading her new short story was so amazing and I also got to meet Maria Pinto, the author of a book that I’ve been reading for my thesis!

Overall, interning at JackLeg has been incredible. I’ve learned how the submission process works at an independent press and I developed important submission review techniques such as how to identify professional craft and sentence variation. I will be continuing to read
submissions for JackLeg over the summer and I look forward to continuing to work with them!

Jane Saltz, HC ’28

Praxis Course: Thorne School Practicum: Bridging Research and Practice

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Jodie Baird

Community Partner: Phebe Anna Thorne School

Praxis Site Supervisor: Jodie Baird

Praxis Poster:

PSYCH 215 Josie_Internicola_Tools to touch on

 

Further Context:

Through my Praxis Course this semester, I had the opportunity to work at the Phebe Anna Thorne School, where I was placed with the mixed-age afternoon class at the preschool on Bryn Mawr’s campus. The Thorne school’s relationship with the Bi-Co was a big draw for me when I was considering attending Haverford, but I hadn’t been able to find time to work at the school up until this semester. When I saw that this Praxis course (Thorne School Practicum: Bridging Research and Practice) offered the chance to combine working at the preschool with learning about early childhood psychology and education, I knew I had to take it. In class every week, we were able to explore various pedagogical approaches to preschool
education, as we discussed research and readings done outside of class, conducted conversations with early education practitioners of several kinds, and shared and reflected upon our own experiences from placement at the Thorne School.

The Thorne School follows a play-based and autonomy-supportive teaching practice, focused on students’ social-emotional development. My placement entailed spending three hours a week in the mixed-age classroom, where I worked with kids aged four- and five-years-old. I built relationships with the students; facilitated play, learning, and inter-personal dynamics; and assisted the teachers with organizational and programmatic tasks. Throughout the semester, I was able to develop my own educational skills, learning from my professor and peers in class, the preschool teachers I worked with, and the students I was assigned to. I learned more about the value of a play-based education, as I got to witness its benefits first-hand, and I found myself growing more intentional as an educator, thinking deeply about everything from my language to my pedagogical approach to learning and teaching. I was especially influenced by my exploration of autonomy-supportive learning and risky play at Thorne, as I was able to witness an environment in which students were encouraged to practice independence, develop confidence and appropriate self-reliance, and make choices for themselves. One example of this comes from the fact that kids could pretty much play with whatever they wanted to for however long they wanted to each day, rather than relying on teachers’ instructions or preferences. Getting to be a part of this setting expanded my understanding of what kids are capable of and provided an example for how I, as an educator, can actively care for children while simultaneously giving them the space they need to grow and flourish.

I feel incredibly grateful for the experiences and knowledge that I’ve gained as a result of this Praxis Course. The Phebe Anna Thorne School is a wonderful place, with welcoming teachers whom I could look up to as educators and remarkably kind students whom I was excited to see each week. The environment of learning and love fostered at Thorne is one that I hope to emulate in my own journey as an early childhood educator, and I know that I’ll keep this course and placement in mind as I continue to
explore education through a psychological, practical, and community-oriented lens.

Camille Hart, BMC ’26 & Mckayla Reyer, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: PSYC215 Thorne School Practicum

Semester: Spring 2026

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Jodie Baird

Community Partner: Phebe Anna Thorne School

Praxis Site Supervisor: Jodie Baird

Praxis Poster:

PSYCH 215 Praxis Poster - Camille Hart and Mckayla Reyer

 

Further Context:

Camille Hart:
My time at the Phebe Anna Thorne school will not be something I forget. I have always loved spending time with children but this placement showed me that not only do I want to continue working with children in a professional sense, I can. My future is not in education but in medicine where working with children can be very difficult. However, this placement opened my eyes to ways that I can make things like trips to the doctor less stressful and scary for preschool aged children.

For my Praxis Poster presentation, my partner, Mckayla Reyer, and I took a deeper dive into anti-bias education (ABE). This form of teaching is based around the idea that children will notice differences, whether we want them to or not. For instance, some parents and teachers try to help their students become something known as “color blind” where they believe their child doesn’t see a difference in race. However, this doesn’t promote equity, it promotes suppression. This is a form of teaching that helps children become comfortable with differences, able to identify when something isn’t fair, and feel comfortable in speaking up for themselves and others against inequity. Inequity is highly emphasized here, not inequality. Equality would give everyone the same things but that is not how people are. At lunch, would you give the same amount of food to a toddler and a teenager? Equity is important because it meets each child where they are and teaches a version of “fairness” that is not based on quantity.

Thorne school implements ABE in many different ways, some that are obvious, and some that are a little less visible. While classrooms may not represent every difference a child can have, the books in the classroom do their best. There are books with children from a multitude of different ethnicities, family styles, visible disabilities, food, religions, etc. Teachers use language that promotes the acceptance of difference at every opportunity. At snack time, it is common to hear a teacher identify the differences and similarities that are found in the children’s food. When a child says or does something that lets teachers know that they have been influenced by some sort of bias, teachers will gently step in and help guide the student to a different way of thinking. For example, I watched one day as a child explained to another that their food is weird and gross. With a little guidance from the teacher, these two students engaged in a conversation about how there are some foods they like and some they do not and that is okay.

My time at Thorne was an incredible experience and I hope that others choose to work here in the future.

Mckayla Reyer:
The Phebe Anna Thorne Practicum has been a very insightful and engaging course. It has been so exciting to connect the theories and discussions we have in class to our experiences in the classroom, and I have gained several practical skills that I will carry on to the next steps of my life and my career. My favorite part of this course has been building relationships with the
students at Thorne, and my placement visits have often been the highlights of my week! I am grateful to have gained more experience with this particular age group, as I hope to teach in early education after graduating.

A specific topic I got to look deeper into was Anti-Bias Education (ABE), with my classmate Camille Hart. ABE is an approach to teaching that addresses equity, diversity, and justice in developmentally appropriate and engaging ways. This helps students strengthen the social and
emotional skills to confront stereotypes, bias, and discrimination. Exploring how Thorne implements an ABE approach has been particularly helpful in understanding how these often complicated topics can be taught in PreK. I see this through the books and stories that reflect different identities, intentional and open conversations, and by offering a safe space to play and build empathy. It has been fun to be a part of a space that supports self-identity, empathy, and social action, all integrated into learning and play

Lee Cheeseman, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: JackLeg Press Editorial Internship    

Semester: Spring 2026  

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Daniel Torday   

Community Partner: JackLeg Press 

Praxis Site Supervisor:  Dr. Jennifer Harris 

Praxis Poster:   

PIS LeeCheeseman

 

Further Context: 

This semester, I served as an editorial intern for JackLeg Press, a small independent publisher of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama. I’d been trying (and failing) to get a publishing/editorial internship since the summer before my freshman year of college so I was so excited this opportunity came along! My work consisted of reading through JackLeg’s backlog of fiction and creative nonfiction queries, short excerpts authors submit from longer completed manuscripts. I rated and reviewed each piece based on JackLeg’s specific standards and gave my recommendations for whether I believed they should move on to the next round of evaluation. While most of the pieces I read were not to my taste or not up to JackLeg’s standards, I still felt like I was learning from everything I read. In almost every piece I found an element of syntax, style, or language that I could incorporate into my own writing. I also encountered genres and types of writing that I never would’ve sought out on my own, broadening my horizons and understanding of what literary fiction and creative nonfiction can be. 

In my coursework, I read The World She Edited by Amy Reading, a biography of Katerine S. White, a Bryn Mawr alumna who went on to become an incredibly influential fiction editor at The New Yorker. I went on to apply many of the things I learned about her editorial process to my own work with JackLeg. It was also just fascinating to learn about the life and legacy of a Bryn Mawr alumna who I hadn’t before heard of, I even found out we shared many things in common! For example, she was an editor for the Tipyno’bob, Bryn Mawr’s student literary magazine during her time and I’m an editor for Nimbus, Bryn Mawr’s current literary magazine!   

One of the coolest aspect of my internship was that I got to go to AWP, the largest conference for writers and publishers in North America! It was an amazing opportunity to feel for the first time that I was surrounded by a community of writers and artists all supporting one another. I went to panels on a wide array of topics hosted by writers I deeply admire such as Deesha Philyaw and Richard Siken.   

In my time with JackLeg I absolutely felt myself grow both as a writer and an editor. The skills I learned from reading and critiquing so many pieces are absolutely valuable in their own right but they also helped me bring a more critical eye to my own creative writing which will be incredibly useful to me as I prepare to begin my creative writing capstone next semester. 

Rai Mitra Thakur, BMC ’27

Praxis Title: Praxis Independant Study

Semester: Spring 2026

Community Partner: Hebrew Immigration Aid Society of Pennsylvania

Praxis Site Supervisor: Rona Gershon

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Marissa Golden

Praxis Poster:

PIS Rai Mitra Thakur

 

Further Context:

I wanted to work in the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) Pennsylvania because I wanted to understand the immigration crisis in the U.S. on a deeper level. As an intake intern this spring, I was able to get a much closer look and directly talk to multiple people about their experiences and see first hand the legal effects that the current administration has on these individuals. I interacted with clients one-on-one through the intake process, which I highlighted at the top of my poster. The intake process would be done through phone call, and I would always make sure if I needed to also contact a translator.  

The client base for this non profit organization centers around immigrants, which include people who are not proficient in English. Especially with how complicated the immigration process is, the role of translators is so crucial for transparency. By using a familiar language to connect with the client, there is an already more established footing for the client to explain their story to the fullest extent without the constraints of a language barrier. The question and answer section of the process is meant to figure out what sort of immigration relief the client is seeking and their background.  

The question and answer section is also the most time taking part of the process because I am transcribing and summarizing the details of the clients background into legal writing. Additionally along with their narrative, I ask questions related to what services the client is looking for. Afterwards I then enter the client’s information into the databases for HIAS PA. The whole intake process would not be useful if the recordkeeping was inefficient and there were too many details missing on the record, making it vital to ask clarifying questions and making sure their story is properly illustrated. 

The clinics in HIAS PA were my most favorite events during this semester. I enjoyed witnessing the collaboration between different groups that share similar goals, such as ALCAMO and pro-bono attorneys. Having clinics was also a way to tackle a lack of funding by still being accessible to clients. These clinics can be found in neighborhoods or easy to reach physical spaces. The audience can be pre-built as well depending on the purpose of the clinic, an example being if it was specifically a session about doing paperwork around getting U.S. citizenship.  

When we are unable to take a client’s case we don’t leave the client with no other options, instead we provide a pre-made list of attorneys and organizations that might have the capacity in their area. There are also cases where we send the clients information about “Know Your Rights”, which centers around understanding your rights if there is ever an encounter with law enforcement. I really loved the Know Your Rights information that HIAS PA compiled thoughtfully that links to other resources and videos, especially with how frightening it is for immigrants to encounter law enforcement and ICE at this period in time. 

Finally, for my broader reflections, I really was disappointed to see that a lot of the forms of relief available for immigrants mainly center around trauma. This is true for the Asylum status, T-Visa, U-Visa, VAWA, and more all of which force the victim to use their trauma to stay in the United States. The funding for non-profits like HIAS have been cut massively, forcing the workforce to shrink and ultimately have to pivot in their strategies of helping immigrants navigate immigration. HIAS PA does this by strengthening their legal advocacy team and hosting more clinics. Lastly, while HIAS PA is meant to only intake the cases of those that are the most impoverished under the poverty line, I believe that the current poverty line is too high. I believe that those who are just above the poverty line are still significantly struggling financially and need more access to affordable prices. Overall, this entire experience has opened my eyes about immigration processes and I was so fortunate to have this opportunity to hear from the Philly Immigrant community directly. 

Priyanka Regmi, BMC ’27

Praxis Course: Language Research in Autism

Semester: Spring 2026    

Faculty Advisor/Professor: Sarah Conlin

Community Partner: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Praxis Site Supervisor: Meg Lyons

Praxis Poster:   

PIS Prii Regmi

 

Further Context: 

This semester, I had the opportunity to work at Dr. Julia Parish-Morris’s Social Attention and Language (SoAL) Lab at the Center for Autism Research (CAR) at CHOP. The lab focuses on studying clinical language and social attention in individuals with neurodevelopmental or psychiatric differences, with the goal of better understanding social communication across the lifespan. A key focus of the lab is using tools like natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to study communication, especially in understudied groups such as autistic girls. 

My main work in the lab was on the SAGA (Sex and Gender in Autism) study, which looks at early development and sex differences in children. This study examines how autistic and non-autistic children communicate and interact through interviews and conversations, as well as structured research and clinical tasks. Study visits include activities like eye-tracking, parent-child interaction, and friendship questionnaires, along with clinical assessments such as language tests, IQ tests, and autism evaluations. Seeing how all of these pieces come together helped me understand how research can capture both social and clinical aspects of development. 

A large part of my role involved transcribing natural language data from interviews and conversations across different studies. These included interactions between participants and clinical research staff, psychologists, parents, and peers across a wide age range. This work required close attention to detail and showed me how complex and nuanced communication can be. I also helped with data entry, organizing information from run-sheets and questionnaires into REDCap while maintaining confidentiality and accuracy. 

Beyond these tasks, I had the chance to shadow in-person study visits for the SAGA project, which gave me a better sense of how research is conducted in real clinical settings.  

One of the most meaningful parts of this experience was seeing how the SoAL lab focuses on autistic girls as an understudied group. Working on SAGA deepened my interest in research on underrepresented communities and the gaps that still exist. I’vealways been interested in social justice and understanding how structural inequalities affect mental health, and this experience helped connect that to my academic goals. Learning that many diagnostic tools are based mostly on male samples and hence may miss autistic girls, made the work feel especially important and showed me why this research really matters.