University Libraries - Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio

This August, 11 graduate students completed the 2023 Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio Summer Fellowship—marking the seventh cohort to be awarded the mentored digital scholarship internship experience since the program’s inception in 2017. At the end of the course, the fellows presented on findings, challenges, and conclusions drawn from their digital project work over theContinue reading "The Studio’s 7th Cohort Completes Summer Fellowship Program"

When I was setting goals at the beginning of the summer, I thought processing and uploading the entirety of the Lowell Offering’s 5-year run would be reasonable. I was so wrong. I underestimated exactly how time-consuming the data entry would be and, around the halfway point, I realized I had to move along. Getting theContinue reading "The Epic Highs and Lows of Building a Digital Archive"

Coming into the Summer Fellowship, the aspect of my project that I was most worried about was the coding. While I am fairly functional, if not precisely fluent, with most technologies, delving beneath the surface level into the murky chasms of coding was a scary step to take. As I sit here reflecting upon myContinue reading "[Data] Mining For Medieval Messengers: Part 2"

Integrating sculpture and multi-digital processes has been my primary research this summer and I began with sketching out designs for my chandeliers. These chandeliers are inspired by sun patterns throughout the day as the final sculpture will emulate sun rays through a light installation with digital projectors. I began with the pattern of Solar Noon,Continue reading "Projection Mapping with Interlocking Sculpture: Prototype Designs"

As I write this I have about a week left in the Digital Scholarship Fellowship. I am grateful for this time and space to work on my podcast Workshop: Writing in Progress. It has been a great learning experience to go from an idea to an actual thing that exists. Since this project involves theContinue reading "Workshop: A Creativity Podcast Post #2"

I used to love NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Her smooth calming voice paired with her insightful questions motivated me on multiple occasions to purchase the book of her guest, be it Ocean Vuong’s poetry collection about grief after his mother’s death or Michael Pollan’s tome on psychedelic drug treatments.  But ever since startingContinue reading "Workshop: A Creativity Podcast – Post #1"

When I first began this fellowship I had hoped that this post would be one of celebration, one that highlighted the fact that I was finished with my Omeka project. Unfortunately that is not the case. I’m not finished, and I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t reach my initial goal. I started with theContinue reading "Blog Post 2: Susa Imports"

This summer I have been working on a project that will test the validity of a social psychological theory in measuring human moral judgment. To facilitate my research project, I began by constructing a survey that was posted on Amazon Mechanical Turk to pilot the test. My survey presented participants with moral transgressions, where theyContinue reading "Measuring Moral Judgment Project Reflection"

This summer has allowed me to use my current skill set of basic text analysis while also improving on my flexibility and open-mindedness in research. While I have made progress on my research project, and accomplished many of the goals that I set out with at the beginning of the summer, I understand that thereContinue reading "Blog Post #2: Conspiracy Theories"

Within my current graduate research I employ light and shadow in immersive installations meant to captivate my audience in a world of my design. Throughout my degree I’ve implemented programs that utilize technical design and execute it in interesting interconnective ways. My primary material has been cardboard due to its democratic nature, but in theContinue reading "Projection Mapping with Interlocking Sculpture: A Start"

When the first generation of “mill girls,” Yankee farmers’ daughters, arrived in New England’s textile factories in the early 19th-century, they were not completely sure what they would encounter or how much work they would have to do. Two hundred years later as I begin to collect and organize an archive of their writings, IContinue reading "Milling About"

Conspiracy theories are a current and dangerous misinformation problem. Unfortunately, during the Covid-19 pandemic, many conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and 5G’s alleged link to Covid-19, spread and became mainstream. As a result, I decided to conduct a research project discussing conspiracy theories during the Covid-19 pandemic. I first determined whether to obtain a setContinue reading "Conspiracy Theory Analysis"

Prior to Samuel Morse’s invention of the telegraph in the first half of the nineteenth century, communication technology was chiefly limited to oral or textual messages delivered by a messenger. British sci-fi savant Arthur C. Clarke expands upon this fact, stating that “When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, she had no swifterContinue reading "[Data] Mining for Medieval Messengers"

This summer I am working on a research project testing a social psychological theory’s ability to predict human moral judgment on moral transgressions. Understanding how humans make moral judgments and decisions in everyday life is important to understanding key social issues. My project uses stories adapted from a subreddit called “Am I the Asshole”, toContinue reading "Understanding Everyday Moral Judgment"

For nearly 80 years the site of Susa, Iran was a site rich in archaeological finds. Excavated by the French, the site revealed a plethora of material remains that deeply impacted the art historical canon of the Near East. My project involves looking through the catalogues and isolating the finds that were imported to theContinue reading "Susa Imports Catalogue"

The journey seeking sites and connections to renowned artist Ana Mendieta has been slow but rewarding. As the heat and humidity of summer persist, tainted with a haze of smoke from the millions of acres burning in Canada, I look for Ana’s voice in the present– how the artist would have responded to the earthContinue reading "Searching for Sites of Renowned Intermedia Artist in Iowa City"

With support from the Digital Studio and Publishing Studio, I am continuing work to adapt and remix a play that presents historical research in a provocative and entertaining way. The original play, Cointelshow: A Patriot Act, by L. M. Bogad, explores the workings of counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) that the FBI used to “discredit, disrupt,” andContinue reading "Cointelshow 2.0"

As a PhD student in the History Department researching the Low German Mennonite network in Latin America, I am found it pertinent to create an interactive map of the Mennonite colonies throughout Latin America. Working with Jay Bowen, we have begun to create a virtual map with the datasets developed by Dr. le Polain deContinue reading "Mennonite Colonies in Latin America"