Beth Uzwiak, PhD

As Founder & Director, Beth Uzwiak provides strategic direction for Story Research, ensuring that our work is both innovative and grounded in community-driven sustainability. 

Trained as an ethnographer, Beth brings expertise in qualitative and participatory methods—from conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups to implementing longterm engagement and planning processes. She partners with organizations and teams to conduct research, evaluate programs, and co-create strategies and artistic interventions to better understand community needs and strengths.

Her portfolio includes projects in public art and memorials, public humanities, place-based arts and culture, civic engagement, environmental justice and stewardship, equitable development and community-led design, museum engagement and exhibition, health equity, food sovereignty, and human rights.

Early in her career, Beth worked as a counselor with a domestic violence crisis shelter and with a residential drug treatment facility for women transitioning from the carceral system. She then worked as a writer and activist with an international feminist human rights organization. Her training in trauma-informed approaches and intersectional feminist grassroots advocacy remain central to her work. At Story Research, her listening and facilitation skills make her a trusted thought-partner and enable her to transform data into strategic action.

Beth holds a PhD in cultural anthropology and has held faculty positions at Bryn Mawr College, American University, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and Moore College of Art and Design teaching a range of anthropology, gender studies, and art history courses.

Along with her obsession with all things ethnographic, Beth is a multidisciplinary artist and writer with a particular interest in feminist art and cultural production.