Taylor Allen

Biography

Allen’s research is taking two paths. Illustrative of medical humanities, the first examines ways people have coped and found well-being in dire circumstances. With lenses of physiology and psychology, we are studying selected diaries and personal letters written by people during wartime, from the Crimean War to World War II. Writers include soldiers, nurses, surgeons, and civilians. One goal is to bring the themes that emerge from the diaries and letters into conversation with research literature on well-being. How do the emergent themes support or complicate psychological and physiological hypotheses on well-being and its intersection with the body and health?

The other path concerns teaching for equity and enduring, transferrable understanding in biology. This path asks several questions. How might a teacher prompt learners to adopt deep motivations and strategies for learning? How might a teacher nurture students’ growth in understanding the nature of science, the ways to reason causally, or the skills for creatively solving problems? How might an institution support instructors striving to create transformative, equitable learning or departments endeavoring to shift toward inclusive, evidence-based practices?

Allen’s research has appeared in Biophysical Journal, CBE-Life Sciences Education, and Nature and is currently supported through a grant from the National Science Foundation. Students have contributed as co-authors and have crafted their own pieces of digital scholarship (example 1 and example 2).