Claudia A. Engel, Ph.D
Academic Technology Specialist
Lecturer
Department of Anthropology
Stanford University

Claudia Engel is an Academic Technolgy Specialist and Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology. She also serves as a Manager of the Academic Technology Specialist Program and as GIS consultant with the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences.

Claudia holds a doctorate degree in Anthropology. Her work centers around the academic uses of technology. She has been involved in projects that explore and apply collaborative technologies. In recent years she has increasingly become involved in spatial analysis and GIS. Claudia is one of the co-organizers of the Stanford interest group in GIS and is one of the core contributors in the development of the Stanford Technology Commons. She also runs a blog on academic data resources and technologies, and code.

Before coming to the US Claudia worked and lived in Europe and South America. Outside her work Claudia serves as principal oboist in the Silicon Valley Symphony.

ANTHRO 130b/230b: Introduction to GIS in Anthropology (Winter 2009 and 2010)

CASA 156: Interpreting Space and Place: An Introduction to Map Making (Fall 2007)

Guest Lectures in:
  URBS 114/ANTHRO 126: Cities in Comparative Perspective (Fall 2009)
  ANTHRO 93 and 94: Anthropological Pre- and Post-field (Spring and Fall 2009)
  ANTHRO 21n: Cities in Global Perspective (Fall 2009)

Workshops on: Computer Supported Fieldwork, Data Analysis Tools, ArcGIS, GRASS, R, GPS

Using open source tools such as R and GRASS Claudia collaborates with several faculty on the use of GIS for analysis of spatial data in ecological anthropology, demography, and archaeology. She is in charge of the spatial research and mapping in connection with Prof. Ebron's research and the fieldschool in Charleston, South Carolina.

Increasingly researchers collaborate on large scale projects that span not only local but also international research groups. Supporting remote interactions with appropriate technologies still poses a major challenge. Claudia has been involved in various projects to support globally distributed research teams, for example the Stanford Figurines project.

High Performance Learning Spaces in Wallenberg Hall provide experimental, technology-rich environments to support collaboration and visualization. In order to explore alternative approaches to teaching and learning Anthropology in different content areas Claudia collaborates in the design, development, and teaching of various courses ("Genetic Structure of Populations", "Introduction to Cultural Studies" and "Models and Imaging in Archaeological Computing"), "Introduction to Cultural and Social Theory", "Virtual Ethnography", "City and Sounds").

C. Engel: Teaching Spatial Analysis in Anthropology. Submitted to the AAG Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, April 2010.

C. Engel: Open Source GIS in Anthropology. FOSS4G, Cape Town, September 2008.

C. Engel: Learning About Space: What Can Web 2.0 Do For Us? Presentation at the ED-Media Conference, Vancouver July 2007.