Lauren Olsen (UCSD Sociology PhD, 2019) Wins 2020 Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal Award

Lauren Olsen received her PhD from the Department of Sociology in 2019 and is now a first-year, tenure-track Assistant Professor at Temple University. In her dissertation, “Curricular Opportunities and Constraints: The Incorporation of the Humanities and Social Sciences into Contemporary U.S. Medical Education,” Olsen draws upon in-depth interviews, non-participant observation, and curricular materials to show how medical educators integrate the humanities and social sciences into the medical curriculum. Her work contributes to debates about how medical professionals conceptualize what it means to be a good doctor, how scholars engage in interdisciplinary collaboration, and how educators’ approaches to curricular integration contribute to or challenge existing structures of inequality. Congratulations to Lauren on her many achievements!