Heather M. Willihnganz Huffman
Ph.D. Candidate;
M.A. Anthropology, UCLA;
Ed.M. Human Development and Psychology, Harvard Graduate School of Education;
B.A. Barnard College, Columbia University.
Fax: 310-206-7833
E-mail:
heatherw@ucla.edu
Subfield
Psychocultural Studies and Medical Anthropology
Research Interests
Emotion, cognition, and motivation; narrative; trauma and healing processes; personality; empathy; intersubjectivity; the education of social work students; morality and public service; person-centered ethnography. United States.
Notes
Dissertation Research: An ethnographic study of the education of social work students in Los Angeles. Methods included participant-observation in a two-year Master's program of social work, person-centered interviews with 14 core students over the course of their education and field training, and a questionnaire administered at the end of the program to the graduating class. My dissertation focuses on the situated formation of cultural relationships intended to alleviate the social and psychological suffering of vulnerable populations, drawing on the students' own reflections about their evolving "professional use of self" in the field of social work.
Graduate Student Fellow in the UCLA/Sloan Center on Everyday Lives of Families, a multidisciplinary project studying the social and cultural lives of families in Los Angeles through anthropological, psychological, linguistic, and ethnographic film methodologies (www.celf.ucla.edu).
Master's Thesis: "It's Not Therapy, but It Is Therapeutic: Safety, Danger, Play & Reward in a Creative Writing Class."
Grants and Awards
UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowship (2009-2010)
UCLA Department of Anthropology Graduate Student Researcher (2008-2009)
UCLA Department of Anthropology Special Dissertation Research Grant (2006)
UCLA Department of Anthropology Fellowship (2005-2006)
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2004-2005)
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2003-2004)
National Science Foundation Summer Institute for Research Design in Cultural Anthropology (2003)
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2002-2003)
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2001-2002)
UCLA Department of Anthropology Fellowship (2000-2001)
Advisors
Dr. Linda C. Garro, Chair
Dr. Douglas Hollan
Dr. Stuart Kirk
Conference Presentations
2009 Huffman, Heather M. W. & Falgoust, Nicole H., Co-Chairs: "Personal Transformation through Cultural Resources." Panel at the Society for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Meeting, Monterey, CA, March.
2009 Huffman, Heather M. W. "Becoming a Secure Base: Transformation in Role, Relationship, and Self-Experience in Clinical Social Work Education." Society for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Meeting, Monterey, CA, March.
2007 Huffman, Heather M. W. "It's Not Therapy, but It Is Therapeutic: Safety, Danger, Play & Reward in a Creative Writing Class." Society for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, March.
2004 Willihnganz, H. & Wingard L. “Exploring Emotion Work in Homework Interactions.” 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Atlanta, GA, December.
2004 Willihnganz, H. & Wingard L. “Exploring the Concept of ‘Emotion Work’ in Interaction.” Presented at the Sloan Work-Family Centers Annual Conference, hosted by the MIT Workplace Center: A Sloan Foundation Center, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, May.
2004 Willihnganz, H. & Wingard L. “When Homework Gets Emotional.” Presented at the UCLA/Sloan Center on Everyday Lives of Families Winter 2004 Data Workshop: Emotional Meaning in Social Interaction, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, January.
INVITED PRESENTATIONS
2004 Willihnganz, H. & Wingard, L. “Exploring the Concept of ‘Emotion Work’ in Family Interaction.” Invited presentation at the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life: A Sloan Center for Working Families (Bradd Shore, Director). Atlanta, GA, September.
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