Sheena Nahm
Peter K. New Award Winner, 2008
In June 2009, Sheena Nahm received her PhD from the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine with an emphasis in Critical Theory. For her dissertation research, she focused on the implementation of play therapy programs in South Korea for children diagnosed with attachment disorders. In addition to issues of transnational knowledge production and regulation of medical programs across borders, she investigated how the adaptation of a play therapy program affects local caretakers' and practitioners' perceptions of categories such as nature-culture, normal-abnormal, and work-play. Prior to receiving her PhD, Sheena received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Biological Basis of Behavior (biopsychology) and Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2001. She went on to receive her Masters in Public Health from Drexel University, with an emphasis in Community Health and Prevention in 2004. There, she was involved in several research projects ranging from health issues among refugees and asylum seekers to food insecurity among urban African American women. Her master's thesis evaluated the effectiveness of hepatitis B multi-media education among Asian immigrant youth in Philadelphia. She is now the Research Program Specialist for the Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S) program at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg Norman Lear Center. She conducts original research, evaluates program activities, assists in data collection and analysis, and presents findings through articles in peer reviewed journals and conferences. She also coordinates research agenda-setting conferences and assists the Program Director with expansion of the research component of the program in the US and overseas.
