Dr. Barg is a medical anthropologist who collaborates on mixed-method and qualitative research with interdisciplinary research teams across six schools at Penn. She directs the Mixed Methods Research Lab in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. She has directed the qualitative or mixed methods cores for four research centers at Penn. In this role, she led a cadre of investigators who incorporated qualitative and mixed methods into their work on adherence to treatment and understanding patient treatment choices for anti-depressants vs. psychotherapy. She has used qualitative methods to identify patient perceptions about a wide variety of topics: emergency contraception, ADHD treatment, Parkinson’s Disease and depression, weight gain among African-American women with breast cancer, the role of self-reliance in managing depression among older African-American and white adults, and the relationship between loneliness and depression among older African-American and white adults.

She served on the editorial board for the Journal of Mixed Methods Research and is a frequent reviewer for journals that publish qualitative health research. Dr. Barg teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in medical anthropology theory and methods at Penn and served as the course director for the university’s yearly Winter Institute on Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research.