InnoAnth Lab Membership

Linguistics\ Phonetics,- C-V Coarticulation, Socio-Cultural Studies, Peoples & Cultures of Africa

Medical Anthropology, Public Health, Women's Health, Women's Reproductive Health and Infant Health, Menstruation, Health Policy

I intend to study Women's reproductive health in my dissertation. Having lived in multiple countries, my research interest arose from my personal experience and interest. The socio-cultural aspects I have seen in my country, where women's lives are considered private, and women's health is always less prioritized than men's health, as well as having recently experienced severe postpartum depression without any treatment or support from health care providers, piqued my future interest in advancing my research career in a women's reproductive health.

I think I will learn the anthropology research methods by using the lab. In a co-working space, the lab has many potentials to offer fellow students proper methods and ideas for doing actual research, which will help me a lot. Additionally, there is a lot of equipment available in the lab, which will help me to create my class projects like podcasts or Zine. Also, as a lab staff, I will be helping other students by mentoring and guidance.

Cultural anthropology, race studies, technology

I will be learning about the making of podcasts and various visual anthropology methods. I will also coordinate a project to showcase the power of games (specifically chess-like games as veritable platforms of cultural artifacts preservation and engagement).

Migration, Migrants, Borders, US-MEX Border, Latin America, Border regions

My research examines contemporary migration dynamics, with particular attention coyotaje practices and to how states produce migrant “illegality” through regulatory practices, border externalization, and regimes of mobility. Drawing on qualitative methods, including interviews, ethnographic engagement, and spatial analysis, I investigate how migrants navigate overlapping legal and extra-legal systems while moving across borders and transit spaces. Rather than treating illegality or precarity as inherent conditions, my work foregrounds them as outcomes of political decisions, institutional practices, and historically situated power relations.

Vulnerability, social support/social network, gender, disaster, law

As internship director, I'm envisioning building connections and relationships with community organizations and exploring partnerships with the Innovative Anthropology Lab. In the future, I'd also like to explore the possibility of a podcast to encourage applied experiences in our program.

Queer Kinship and Relationships; LGBTQ+, Feminism

I will be working on my thesis, a annotated bibliography, and preparing my self for when i will eventually have to defend my proposal this semester. I will also like to work on community engagement for the lab. If I have the time, I am also interested in figuring out how some of the equipment, like the podcast stuff and soundboard, work and possibly work on a project of my own.

Cultural Anthropology, Mexican American Studies, Cultural studies, Diversity Studies

I will be recording and documenting interview sessions with community members of San Marcos, working with families during the Dia de los Muertos event at the San Pedro cemetery as well as gathering qualitative data based on the interactions and spoken responses of the community members involved.

Applied Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, Global Health, Human-centred design.

My interest is in utilizing the tools to help my learning in my class work and dissertation, such as use of visual anthropology techniques, making podcasts, posters. I'm also curious about what other team members are working on and the strategies they are using.

Mythology, Linguistics, Classic Maya, Decipherment, Archaeology, Japanese, Writing, Hieroglyphs, Conflict

I would like to research various subjects in linguistic anthropology and archaeological decipherment to produce videos on it. The videos would be short (10-15) and have low editing requirements with a simple background soundtrack, primary source photos, and some hand-drawn characters and maps to better convey the information. I would also like to progressively improve by learning new and better techniques for editing and producing videos and providing voiceovers for them.

medical anthropology, business anthropology, STS, feminism

I am participating in the community research class working on the analysis and future production of family stories of the San Marcos Cemetery. Additionally, I will be working on my thesis.

Linguistic Anthropology, Word Relationship, Cognates, Cross Languaging Skills, Language Acquisition

I intend to begin researching the Purepecha word association with items present within the natural environment and word association with the same or similar items represented in art. An example would be a photograph of a star or stars and an artistic representation of the same thing. Are the same words chosen and how do these words imply cultural understanding of their environment. I will also look for the similar usage in distant cultures as a comparison.

Veterans, Latinas in the Military, Mexican American Studies, Mexico, Gender and Identity

I am currently engaged in data analysis for a border project. I am considering utilizing Atlas-ti for qualitative data analysis, as well as various recording devices to capture oral histories. I am also teaching this semester's locally engaged research class, leading the San Pedro Cemetery Project.

Medical Anthropology, Queer Studies, Gender Studies, Health Equity, SRHR, Substance abuse

This semester, I plan to conduct a workshop focused on using software for qualitative data analysis, such as Atlas.ti, NVivo, and MAXQDA. The goal is to provide members of the Innovative Anthropology lab and students with hands-on demonstrations and practical skills for analyzing qualitative data using these tools. Additionally, I will arrange workshop on citation management software, including Mendeley and EndNote, to help students and members to use referencing of academic sources ethically.
 

Linguistics/Phonetics, linguistics anthropology, embedded knowledge and name entity recognition

This semester, I am taking a design anthropology course and there is a zine project that I will use the lab for creative and multimodal methods for the project. Also, I am currently working on Named Entity Recognition, the lab can support me through access to collaborative space and digital tools.

Economic Anthropology, Organizational Anthropology, Social Work and Anthropology, Intersectional Science and Technology Studies, Intersectional Medical Anthropology, Lopsided Imaginations

This semester, I plan to use the lab to explore qualitative art based methods and how I can integrate art based methods into my research. I would like to join the lab and the lab community to explore and develop my research dissertation topic as a first year PhD cultural anthropology student!

Fun fact: As an MA student in 2021-2022, Kayli was one of the first two lab staffers and helped build the lab that we all enjoy today! Welcome back, Kayli!

Sustainability, harm reduction, conservation, food justice, film, ethnography 

My thesis work has to do with community gardens and food forests in central TX. I'm investigating what spurs people to engage in agricultural practices and how connected they feel to their environment. My background comes from working as a cook in restaurants, where the farm-to-table movement really made some waves. My underlying motivations have to do with my personal vision of reimagining what relationship/impacts restaurants could have with their environment and if it could be positive.

Applied Anthropology, Border studies, Ethnographic research, Latinx Studies

I will be working on my thesis proposal this semester. It will be about issues with the identification of those who die trying to cross the border in Eagle Pass, TX. Ethnographic research will be used in my thesis to help better understand why these issues are happening. 

anthropology and law, environmental anthropology, and cultural anthropology, Mexican American culture

In the Spring semester of 2025 I had worked with my professor on a poster introducing the concept of Immigrant homemaking. This poster was created from a previous final project I had created with classmates about the life cycle of an immigrant. In both of my projects I introduced mexican culture and why mexican immigrants come to the United States. In addition, I discussed what immigrants define as home and how they make a home in a new location. I would like to expand on that research especially due to the political conflict occurring in our country right now with ICE. In addition, I would like to research environmental anthropology. How marginalized communities are impacted my climate change, environmental justice, and political systems.

Maya, anthropology of religion, culture, theory, and field research methods

Religious studies, social justices, folklore, feminism, and representation in media.

I would like to put together a video series of anthropology topics in the news or a documentary about superstitions and hometown myths. I believe that if there were more options to interact with the knowledge in the anthropology field, the participation would expand.

medical anthropology, forensic anthropology, biological anthropology,  and applied anthropology

This semester, I hope to continue my research regarding the nursing shortages within the United States. Currently, I am combing through the available literature in order to craft a scoping review. I also wish to use this lab to work on different class projects and, when I have a better idea of what it will be, my graduate thesis. 

Anthropology of Education, Medical Anthropology, Mental health, Asian Studies, Accessibility

I am interested in how people learn and function in educational spaces. I am passionate about helping students learn how they can be more successful in school. I am interested in learning more about using Canva in the classroom as an educator and as a student to help accomplish these goals.

African studies, English language hegemony, language attitudes and identity, multilingualism, post-colonialism, sociocultural and linguistic anthropology

My aim is to develop the linguistic perspective in the InnoAnth Lab and the department as a whole by emphasizing the imperative role language plays in social and cultural research. I will be utilizing my background in phonetics and sociolinguistics to develop ethnographic resources such as fieldwork and language documentation tools, methods for interviews and cross-cultural communication, and guides for digital behavioral data collection and analysis.

Language, gender, and identity; teasing and gossip practices; childhood obesity and body image; adolescent and emerging adult health; youth and social media; ethnographic and applied research methods; contemporary U.S. and educational research settings

feminism, oral histories, deadheads, fan and music culture, business anthropology, applied anthropology, cultural anthropology, archives, gender studies

I will be starting to develop my thesis idea and begin working on my proposal. The lab space is an excellent location to work on projects away from more crowded areas on campus as well as within Evans. For my thesis, I want to incorporate some type of visual data collection, but have no previous experience. This isn't something taught in class. I know the InnoAnth lab has tools to assist me as I learn this form of data collection new to me. 

Director of the Innovative Anthropologies Lab

science and technology studies (STS); feminist STS; business anthropology, design anthropology, applied anthropology; innovation; entrepreneurship; technologies; design; futures and foresight; expertise; ignorance and agnotology; and infrastructure

Cultural Anthropology, Marriage, Gender, Kinship, Design Anthropology, STS, Screen, Interface, Virtual Ethnography

An Anthropological study of Screen and Interface in the context of Indian matrimony: Studying matrimonial (marriage) websites can reveal how design gets integrated into social norms of kinship, gender, religion, caste, and so on. I'd be looking at how technology gets socially appropriated, how it mediates intimate relations, and how 'technology in use’ is different from ‘technology in design'.

sanctuary movements, place justice and restorative practices, queer/trans studies

Monuments and place names as they relate to ethnic conflict, social justice, and truth and reconciliation processes in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I am also making a documentary and writing ethnography about Chicanx drag king culture as spiritual activism with a group in San Antonio called Los MENtirosos.  
 

Queer and Feminist Geographies, Migration, Sanctuary & Community-Engaged Research

I hope to engage with some creative methods using photography, testimonio/ethnography and poetry. My work centers on immigration to the US and using storytelling is a powerful tool to dignify and humanize individual experiences.

Masculinities, Ethnography, Sociology of Education, Sexuality, Social Movements, Qualitative Methods

I will be using the lab to understand the different equipment and resources used in qualitative methods. After we understand and learn how to use the equipment in our graduate Qualitative Methods in Anthropology course I plan to utilize it for our final project and my Master's thesis next year. I have not proposed my project or thesis yet but I want to do in depth interviews. I am very interested in researching male athletes in the transfer portal and the impact it has on their experiences in Higher Education spaces.

West African economies, merchants, veterans of colonial armies, Islam in West African society, history of theory in anthropology, pedagogic methods