A Whirlwind March, some Links

#SunnyLondon from Primrose Hill

I am just barely back in the US, I'm quite certain my brain has not arrived yet.  Already there are things on the internet that can give you ideas (because you haven't been following my every move on Twitter, for which I commend you highly) about what I've been up to.  In particular, there are Storifys up of conversations I participated in at the SRHE in London on March 28th, with  Lesley Gourlay, Dave White,  Martin Oliver, and Ibrar Bhatt. (there will be a podcast of the four talks, I'll be sure to share the link when I have it), and of the joint UCL-IOE sponsored event, Spaces, Places and Practices, on March 31st, which involved presentations by Bryony Ramsden, Martin Reid and Anna Tuckett, and myself and Lesley Gourlay.

The #UKAnthroLib hashtag was followed by people outside of the room on March 31st, and the enthusiastic reception (and conversations that actually started long before March 31st) resulted in the swift creation (by Georgina Cronin and Andy Priestner) of the new #UKAnthroLib blog, which will involve multiple authors and I hope a great deal of interesting discussion.

Oh and of course there's the actual research Lesley Gourlay and I did, in partnership with Lesley Pitman at UCL.  The Storifys will give you some sense of the preliminary things we are saying about the data we have collected so far, but I've got about 19 hours worth of interviews to get transcribed and then analyze, along with the cognitive maps we collected, and the SUMA data we gathered in each of the site libraries (Bartlett, SSEES, Institute of Archaeology at UCL, and the IOE library as well).  We should have enough analyzed to be able to say something interesting (I hope) at the HECU7 conference in Lancaster (well, Lesley will have to say it for us, as I am not Made of Money), and we have high hopes for more conference presentations (TBA!) in the Autumn.

In the meantime, we will be digging into what we've got, and attempting to figure out what we think it means. 

Optical Fabrication and Testing, Ethnography, and Poster Sessions

I presented my first ever poster at a session at the Optical Fabrication and Testing conference at the end of last month.  We were the only presentation in the entire conference that had anything to do with social science.

We were apparently the best-attended poster at the meeting, which was both surprising and gratifying.  There is a lot of interest among optical science practitioners in how to train effectively the future practitioners they need for their field to continue to thrive.  I thoroughly enjoyed the conference (not just because it was in Monterey, CA!) as an anthropological experience--it was a fascinating combination of intellectual exchange, commercial marketing, and networking.

The conference was also an opportunity to kick off the survey part of the project, where we try to gather information from a much wider audience of optical science and engineering academics and professionals.  If you know any of these people, please direct them to the survey link, I'd really appreciate it.

Click here to download a readable copy of the poster--it presents our initial impressions of the research we did in labs and classrooms at UNC Charlotte, as well as interview conducted among UNC Charlotte optical science and engineering community members (current and former).  I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Citation:
D. M. Lanclos, A. M. Ferrara, M. A. Davies, C. J. Evans, and T. J. Suleski, "Collaborative work within Optical Engineering: Ethnography and curricular development," in Applied Industrial Optics: Spectroscopy, Imaging and Metrology, OSA Technical Digest (online) (Optical Society of America, 2012), paper JTu5A.1.
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=AIO-2012-JTu5A.1