Britt Dahlberg, PhD

Director, Center for Applied History, Science History Institute
Associated Faculty, Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Britt Dahlberg is Director of the Center for Applied History, a publicly engaged research center at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, and Associated Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health where she teaches qualitative and mixed methods. Trained in anthropology, Dr. Dahlberg has conducted and consulted on interdisciplinary qualitative and mixed methods research projects for over ten years, and has published on approaches to writing mixed methods articles and grants in the Sage Handbook of Mixed Methods, and on use of mixed methods in evaluating interventions. At the Science History Institute she leads a multidisciplinary public research program exploring the social practice and impact of science, health care, and technology in the contemporary United States, and develops new methods for engaging public audiences in dialogues about health and science. Her current research focuses on how environmental health scientists, government staff, and residents make sense of potential environmental threats in the context of efforts to collaborate around urban planning and redevelopment. In past work, she explored and has published on older Americans’ understandings and experiences of depression, and their impact on doctor-patient communication and depression diagnosis and care in primary care settings. Across projects she has focused on understanding situated experiences of health experts and lay people, and sought to improve methods for understanding and collaboration across perspectives. Her work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Wenner Gren Foundation, American Philosophical Society, the ACLS/Mellon Foundation, and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others. She enjoys mentoring others to develop research questions and designs that can take context and multiple perspectives into account.