Hi all,

My name is Cameron Rasmussen.  In the last few years I learned (through a very brief google search) that my last name means son of the beloved, so I have that going for me.  I was born and raised in Sacramento, CA where my twin brother and parents still live.  I moved to NYC to do an MSW 7 and a half years ago and haven’t left.  I love music, hip hop and soul in particular, my spotify discover weekly and Friday release radar playlists are two highlights of my week.

Im a second year student in the social welfare program at CUNY and am interested in restorative justice and alternative responses to violence beyond a paradigm of punishment.  Im interested in restorative and transformative accountability, both for responding to serious violence, but also in helping everyone everywhere be in better relationship with themselves and others, and more able to resolve conflict in ways that lead to that.  Im also interested in gender and masculinity, how patriarchy and domination make accountability work much harder, and to identify and further strategies for uprooting patriarchy, both to make accountability more possible, and to help us all be in better relations.

 

 

Hi all!

My name full name is Diana Melendez (full version being Diana Alejandra Melendez Romero.) I am the daughter of amazing parents, middle child of three sisters, cousin to many, godmother to a spirited 2 year old, sometimes runner and occasionally an artist, cat mom and enthusiastic friend to awesome people! I am originally from Mexico and have lived in NJ all my US-based life.

My background is in social work as a family therapist, behavioral health crisis services and also have some experience working in a middle-school, psychiatric hospital and doing in-home therapy with youth and families.  While working with the Institute for Family Services, where I completed a post-graduate training, I was also able to participate in the organizing of the Liberation Based Healing Conference over the past couple of years which has been amazing! I also am connected with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and have been in the role of organizer/trainer through the Undoing Racism/Community Organizing Workshop, more so before I started studenting again.

I am currently a second year doctorate student in the Social Welfare program and am finding my interests to be in higher education and liberatory pedagogy.  I am excited to be teaching in the social work programs at Columbia and NYU this semester as an adjunct lecturer and have been working to shape my classes to be the least lectury as possible.  I believe higher education, and other institutional spaces where people come together, can be opportunities for critical-consciousness raising, relationship-building and resistance and that it is important for educators/researchers to use our access to sources/resources with a commitment to equity. I am looking forward to continuing to learn how to integrate interactive technology into these processes and maybe even claim a space within the digital humanities world!

 

Hi friends!

My name is Lisa Ng, and I am in my last semester of the Master of Liberal Studies Program in Data Visualization. I received my B.A. in Urban Environmental Policy from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies.  I am currently a student advisor at CityTech. This is my twentieth consecutive year (wow! but also, hopefully my last year) as a student in the New York City public school system. I am currently waiting on results from various PhD programs to determine where I will be for the next few years.

My academic interests lie in waste, race, data, their relationships to one another, and how they are used to tell stories that affect lives. As an undergraduate, I developed an interest in trash and waste as a tool of pedagogy – because everyone interacts with trash, it serves as an accessible means to understand ubiquitous systems such as capitalism, racism, colonialism, etc. At the CUNY Building Performance Lab, I developed an interest in data, which led me to the MALS program at the GC and eventually to the field of Digital Humanities. I am especially interested in how technology can make archives and lesson plans more accessible.

I have been all over the place in terms of my interests, but that is driven by my curiosity of our environment and my genuine love for people. That is what brought me to the ITP Program. I have spent the past five years organizing and participating in multiple conferences. I also have experience working with and in various community organizations with bases in low-income Asian-American communities in New York City. If you have any questions about anything listed above, feel free to contact me!

Hi everyone!

My name is Elizabeth Che (but you can also call me Liz). I am a doctoral student in Educational Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. I received my B.S. degree in Psychology and B.A. degree in Political Science from the Macaulay Honors College at the College of Staten Island, CUNY. I am currently serving as the Chair of the Graduate Student Teaching Association (GSTA; APA Division 2: The Society for the Teaching of Psychology) which aims to develop resources and services to support the classroom experiences of graduate student teachers.

My research interests relate to the broad areas of language development, development of effective pedagogy, and the effect of incorporating technological tools in the classroom. I am involved in efforts to evaluate the impact of teaching with Wikipedia in Introductory Psychology, by having students contribute to biographies of distinguished scientists as part of the WikiProject: PSYCH+Feminism.

I participated in the Open Pedagogy Fellowship over this past winter session where I learned how to use the GC Commons and techniques for converting my Introductory Psychology course into a zero-cost course for students. I am still working on the course site, but I plan to have it completed by the end of this or the following semester.

I’m Ash. I am a level 2 Ph.D. student in Theatre and Performance. My academic work centers around theatre practices in war zones and areas of conflict. I am a director, actor, and playwright. I am interested in creating work that transforms the way that people see the world. As a millennial artist, I am particularly drawn to how the events of September 11th, 2001 shaped my generation. This has been a question that I have asked in much of my work, which has looked at the implications of the war on terror, patriotism, religion, security and surveillance, xenophobia, and the refugee crisis.

I am loving my time at the Graduate Center, though I am a practitioner at heart. It’s been very exciting to further develop theatrical praxis in a supportive and stimulating atmosphere. Currently, I’m working on creating a one-woman production of Antigone set at the US/Mexico border. I’m often working on multiple projects at once. I like staying busy and motivated.

Upon receiving my Ph.D. my goal is to continue doing what I’m doing now but be paid a living wage to do it… Lately, though I have been thinking a lot about journalism and dabbling with the idea of what having a job in journalism (like at Democracy Now! or an independent organization) would look like. I know it’s impossibly hard, like theatre. I am particularly interested in photojournalism (here is a link to my photo website: www.introublewiththeking.org). My life has some epic scope creep, but I’m okay with it – keeps things interesting at all times.

ITP has been absolutely transformative. It has greatly informed by teaching and I’ve been exposed to exciting new ideas and technological practices that I had only vaguely heard of. I am particularly interested in technology and pedagogy as activism. This is what initially brought me to ITP. I’m looking forward to continuing working with and learning from all of you.

This is my cat, Kirby. Isn’t he great?

 

 

Hello again! I’m Christine Snyder. I’m 43, married to a musician for nine years, and have lived in Brooklyn since I graduated from my undergrad in 1997. I double-majored in journalism and theatre and have done both (at the same time!). I have a Master’s degree (MA) in Theatre History and Criticism from Brooklyn College and worked for almost twenty-two years in some kind of front-of-house, back-of-house capacity on Broadway. I am a member of two unions and my husband is a member of another. My cat’s name is Sammy and he’s a little bit of a dick – mostly because he’s too smart for his own good. I was born and raised just outside of Chicago and I am a passionate Chicago Cubs fan. Ramus Catuli!

I first became interested in the digital humanities when I asked to work on the Harry Watkins Diary project, headed by my thesis advisor, Amy Hughes. I worked for two years on the online edition, learning XML and working very closely with Hughes on the transcription and editing process (I can read nineteenth-century handwriting like a boss now, which has been extremely useful in my research). Mostly, I’m chasing the high of that work – I love the archive, particularly working with original manuscripts and photographs. The literal smell of history, right? That’s the smell of survival, right? And that’s what the archive is about – survival.

I believe very strongly in the cultural importance of the historian and of the historian’s role as a critic and observer of the arts/artists. What is remembered and how it is remembered is an active and activist project. My dissertation topic concerns the telling and retelling of Civil War and Reconstruction history through popular culture, particularly history-centered film and musical theatre (which are most definitely in conversation with one another). The inability and unwilingness of hegemonic (read: white) society to address the deep wounds still festering within U.S. cultural/historical discourse since before the founding of the nation should concern us as a populace, much more than it does.  History-telling has improved since my childhood – many more forgotten/ignored/repressed voices are being rediscovered and celebrated and HEARD. But popular culture is a sluggish thing that easily falls back on old modes of expression and lazy glossings of historical narratives. Still, popular (and commercial) culture is also imbued with strange ambiguities, contradictions, and breakages, attracting me in ways that much activist and avant-garde art does not. As with the study of history itself (whatever that means), what is interesting is not having what I already believe confirmed or reaffirming what a work would like me to believe, but instead glimpsing all of the cracks and fissures inside of a piece. I research, read, and attend theatre and film (and watch TV) for these reasons.

Hello there! I’m Anthony, a spunky grad student in the recently born M.A. program in Digital Humanities. I earned my A.S. degree from Dutchess Community College (2016) and my B.S. degree from SUNY New Paltz (2018), both degrees being in Adolescence Education & English! It was at New Paltz that I was introduced to the digital humanities by a professor who molded a course into what would be known as “Digital Lyric.” Throughout this class, we took poetry and reworked it using technology in many different ways. Also through this class, I worked on a digital Victorian Queer Archive with Dickinson College, which really heightened my interest in how these practices could be used in different classroom settings. As a result, here I am at The Graduate Center within the Digital Humanities program, where I am focusing specifically on digital pedagogy.

I am currently one of the Program Assistants for the M.A. in Digital Humanities and M.S. in Data Analysis & Visualization, a HASTAC Scholars Fellow, and as of very recently I’ll be starting as an Adjunct Lecturer for the Humanities department at LaGuardia Community College this coming Spring I semester. My overall goal is to transfer into a Ph.D. program upon completing my master’s degree. I’m interested in pursuing Urban Education with a specialization in Learning Sciences, where I’ll apply DH methodology to new pedagogy through technology.

ITP has been incredibly helpful in my personal goal of using technology to help bridge the gap in equity among students. Raven Gomez and I actually recently presented our own digital game project at the CUNY Games Conference 5.0, where we received a lot of praise for our mission from both students and faculty members. Our project is aimed at first-generation college students within the community college setting. Its purpose is to act as a commentary on the importance of validating one’s identity and how we grade experiential learning within education. If you have any questions about it or are interested in playing, just ask one of us!

Hello everyone! I am a master’s student in Digital Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center. I  received my bachelor’s from Smith College in Africana Studies: Urban Education, and an A.A in Liberal Arts Social Science & Humanities from LaGuardia Community College. I am currently serving as the the HASTAC Scholars Coordinator with The Futures Initiative and Program Assistant with the Digital Humanities department at the GC. I have also worked with community college across the country, and am passionate to serve the needs of students of 1st generation college students from nontraditional backgrounds. As a scholar rooted in the humanities, my work demonstrates a strong interdisciplinary background, integrating innovative pedagogies of education including the usage of technology and game-based projects in the classroom. I have previously managed the Smith College Video Game Research Lab through which I mentored students in creating their own video game projects, and collaboratively created games which reflected the needs of students of color in higher education settings. Through the use of digital platforms, I’m passionate students can become empowered to forge their own identities in higher education settings.

Taking last semester’s ITP Core one with Carlos Hernandez and Ximena Gallardo was an awesome experience, which ended up being  huge support and inspiration for a games project Anthony Wheeler and I recently had the opportunity to present on at the CUNY Games Conference this past January.

I’m looking forward to continue learning from you all and having the scaffolding to expand upon these types of interactive medium projects in the near future!