Dr. Philip Kao is joining the department as a postdoctroal fellow in medical anthropology to cordinate an interdisciplinary research project on aging and wisdom. Dr. Kao received his PhD in social anthropology (St Andrews) in 2013. His dissertation is an ethnography of a long-term care facility in the American Midwest, which focuses on caregiving, personhood, kinship and the phenomenology of aging. As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Kao will be working on turning his thesis into a book manuscript, and teaching a seminar on aging and wisdom that will set the groundwork for an international and multidisciplinary conference at the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to his research on aging and caregiving, ongoing projects and interests include such areas as: STS, defense studies, and poverty in America.