The Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative is pleased to welcome seven new CHI Grad Fellows for the 2013-2014 academic year. The new fellows come from the Departments of Anthropology, the Department of History, and the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures – and represent a wide variety of subdisciplines and areas of research.
In the following weeks, each fellow will introduce themselves in more depth, talking about what drew them to the program as well as some of the preliminary interests for their activities during the duration of the academic year.
In advance of these more detailed introductions, its my pleasure to briefly introduce this year’s cohort of fellows:
Adam Haviland: Adam is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology. His research is dedicated to Anishinaabemowin language revitalization and preservation among Great Lakes Native American communities.
David S. Bennett: Davis is a PhD student in the Department of History. His research explores moving image’s transformative impact on both social and individual identity – specifically among Americans in the mid-late-20th century.
Andrew LoPinto: Andrew is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology. His research focuses on the bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology of ancient Egypt.
Esther Milu: Esther is a PhD student in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures. Her research is focused on Kenyan Hip-hop as a way to understand how youth develop transcultural and translingual literacy practices in today’s multilingual, multicultural, transnational and globalized world.
Liz Timbs: Liz is a PhD student in the Department of History. Her research focuses on the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of the Republic of South Africa. The underlying goal of her research is to challenge the way historians, anthropologists, and scholars from a variety of disciplines conceptualize the epidemic
David M. Walton: David is a dual PhD student in African American & African Studies and History. His academic foci is colonial Cold War Africa and African America – with specific attention to liberation movements in Africa and the “Third World,” and black equality movements in America.
Shanti Zaid: Shanti is a dual PhD student in African American & African Studies and Anthropology. His research focuses on Cuba, and explores the interplay between African diasporic communities and religion.
The Cultural Heritage Informatics Graduate Fellowships offer Michigan State University graduate students in departments and programs with an emphasis on cultural heritage the methodological skills necessary creatively and thoughtfully apply information, communication, and computing technology to cultural heritage materials, address key challenges in cultural heritage, influence the current state of digital cultural heritage, and become thought leaders for the future of digital cultural heritage.
During the course of their fellowship (which lasts for the 2013-2014 academic year), students develop and launch a significant and innovative digital cultural heritage project. In addition, they are expected to engage with the wider (digital) cultural heritage community through regular writing on the Cultural Heritage Informatics Blog and supported participation in digitally themed conferences, workshops, and meetings.
The Cultural Heritage Informatics Fellowship program is generously supported by the Graduate School, The College of Social Sciences, The Department of History, The Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures, University Outreach & Engagement, and The Department of Anthropology, and is administered by the Department of Anthropology in partnership with MATRIX: The Center Digital Humanities & Social Sciences.
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