Students

Gabriela Arias—Gabi for short—was born and raised in New York City; however, she has called Wallkill, NY home since 2001. As a member of the first generation of her family to be born in the United States, she is proud of her roots. She considers the African ancestry of Dominicans from across the diaspora central to her identity as a Dominican-American woman. The history and culture of Afro-Latinos fascinates her and is an academic interest which she has been fortunate enough to explore at Hamilton College. An Africana Studies major, Gabi is especially interested in the intersections between institutions of public history and the process of historical preservation in communities across the African diaspora. Throughout her college career, she researched the complex relationship between personal and family histories, particularly in marginalized communities, and their preservation in the archives. For the past two summers, Gabi held internships where she was engaged in digital archival work and humanities-based technology research. In 2009, she aided in building an online, interactive digital archive dedicated to the 1976 student protests in Soweto, South Africa. This summer, she delved into two exciting research based internships. First, at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Gabi processed and digitized their extensive collections on the LGBT Puerto Rican community in New York City. Second, she interned at El Museo del Barrio and aided in the development of their website and potential mobile application. An aspiring archivist, Gabi intends to begin graduate school in the fall of 2011 in a Library and Information Sciences program with an emphasis in cultural heritage archival preservation.

Alex Benkhart is a senior Religious Studies/Asian Studies double major at Hamilton College. Alex makes an effort to incorporate digital media into every aspect of his study, having worked independently on examinations of religious visual culture, anime heroines, and the commodification of sex in contemporary Japanese art. Alex has been working closely with Professor Kyoko Omori over the past year to create the Comparative Japanese Film Archive. He says he finds this work very rewarding and hopes to continue with the project until its completion. Currently, Alex is applying for a Fulbright research grant that will take him to Japan in order to study depictions of homosexuality in Japanese popular culture. Alex’s dream is to ultimately make a documentary on the topic.

Alex is in the class of 2017 at Hamilton College. His interdisciplinary major (Technology & Society) explores how technology and society shape each other. He joined the DHi during his sophomore year and has worked on various DHi projects. Through his work with the DHi, Alex is hoping to gain new perspectives on how digital technology and user experience intersect.

Clara Cho is a member of the class of 2020 from Summit, New Jersey. She plans to be a history major, and loves playing ultimate frisbee with the Hamilton Hot Saucers team. She joined DHi as a freshman, and is currently working with the American Prison Writing Archive. Clara is hoping to further develop her organizational skills, and to learn more about the digital humanities as a whole. In her downtime, Clara enjoys reading, baking, and running.

Hoang Do ’17 is a Cinema and New Media Studies major at Hamilton College. Hoang is working with Professor Kyoko Omori on the Crossroads in Context short film as a videographer, video editor, and creative consultant. The film documents refugees’ involvement in ESL classes in Utica NY, thereby narrating an aspect of their assimilation into American society. Hoang also helped design the Comparative Japanese Film Archive’s interface during the Institute for Liberal Arts Digital Scholarship (ILiADS) conference, which took place in summer 2015 at Hamilton College. Learning from his experience with Crossroads in Context, Hoang intends to create his own documentary film about the Karen Burmese refugees in Utica. He aims to approach the project on a personal level through recording the daily life of a single Karen refugee, believing that the microcosm of a person’s journey can be telling of macro trends.

Hoang's student reflections essay can be found at: http://dhinitiative.org/students/class/do

Samantha is a member of the class of 2018 from Summit, New Jersey.  She is majoring in Cinema and Media Studies and Creative Writing. She joined the DHi as a sophomore and is currently working on the Soweto project, mapping a timeline of the Mandela House. She hopes to learn more of the technical skills necessary to pursue her passion for storytelling through the Soweto project and through future work on the Biko and NOLA projects.

Jessie is a sophomore at Hamilton, and is Literature major.  She is from Kinnelon, New Jersey, and is currently working with Professor Serrano as a student research intern at the DHi on the Guaman Poma Arresting Images Project.  This project focuses on an analysis of the relationship between the text and the images in Guaman Poma's book Nueva corónica y buen gobierno.  As a student of Spanish, Jessie is particularly excited to study the text of this book, which focuses on the impact of colonization on the Incan and Andean way of life. In her free time, Jessie can be found playing her French horn or the piano, or dancing at the ballet studio.  

Hannah Fine is a sophomore at Hamilton College, originally from White Plains, New York. She is concentrating in English and Creative Writing, with minors in Cinema & New Media Studies and Mathematics. A lover of all things mediated and technological, she hopes to one day work in television production or fashion public relations. As an intern with the Digital Humanities Initiative, Hannah is primarily focused on communication, working with social media, newsletters, and publicity. She will also work with the Creative Writing department to create her own unique digital humanities project as a part of her senior thesis.

Allie Goodman is a member of the class of 2015 from New York City. She is majoring in American Studies with a minor in Sociology and Cinema and New Media. As an intern with the Digital Humanities Initiative Allie is working with Dr. Nieves on the Soweto Historical GIS (SHGIS) Project, mostly as a research intern. She is exited to continue learning much more about Digital Humanities, DHi's developing role in academic fields, and contribute to the efforts to incorporate Digital Humanities and Digital Scholarship in academia. She is thankful for being able to participate in the initiative! 

Matt Goon is a member of the class of 2018 from New Jersey. He is a Computer Science major with interests in many other disciplines including Anthropology, Cinema and New Media Studies, Digital Arts, Economics, and History. He currently works with Dr. Angel Nieves and Greg Lord on DHi's interactive media, 3D modeling, and virtual environment projects, including Blender and Unity-related tasks. He hopes to apply many of the skills practiced and acquired at DHi to life after college.

Jack Hay is a member of the class of 2019 from Essex, Massachusetts.  Jack is a Computer Science major and is working with Dr. Nieves on the Soweto project.  He has experience in the field of computer-aided design and architecture as well as coding.  His work includes the modeling of houses in ArchiCAD. Jack hopes to work as a software engineer after his time at Hamilton.

Dima Kaigorodov is a member of the class of 2016 from Chisinau, Moldova. His current academic interests include Economics, World Politics and Cinema and New Media Studies. He is currently working on the Refugee Project as a videographer, video editor and creative consultant. While working on this project he hopes to polish his filming and editing skills and learn more about the use of video in the Digital Humanities world.

Xinyang Li is working on her project about Confucianism’s role in China. Confucianism has been a school of thought, which is considered as the orthodox thinking of Chinese culture. However, as China develops its economic power, Confucianism serves new roles. It has become a symbol of Chinese culture as Confucian Institutes are established vastly in the Western world. Furthermore, Confucianism has been commercialized in recent decades, serving to attract tourists. Li is exploring whether Confucianism is losing its essence while it is acting multiple roles or Confucianism coexists with its new roles.

Max Lopez is a rising sophomore and archaeology major at Hamilton College. Having been interested in archaeology since a very young age, Max now works with Professor Nathan Goodale on a site in the Slocan Valley of British Columbia. The site consists of a series of pit houses or winter homes for the Native Americans that inhabited it. Max, who has been working with and learning 3D digital modeling software over the summer, will visit the site and using GPS/GIS technology will map the pit houses. After that he hopes to create an accurate to life 3D reconstruction of the site that can be walked through and interacted with. Not only will this reconstruction aid in research as a cost effective alternative to a physical reconstruction of the site but it will also be a new way to get the public involved in the research. Archaeology is a field defined by advancing technology and Max looks to use his knowledge of 3D modeling to continue pushing the field forward in new ways and staying ahead of the curve.After his time as a DHi Student Fellow, Max was accepted into graduate school at both the University of Cambridge and Oxford University.

Shirley is a member of the class of 2017 from Orange, CT. She is a Public Policy major with minors in Environmental Studies and Jurisprudence, Law and Justice Studies. She joined the DHi team in January to read and process essay submissions for the American Prison Writing Archive, led by Professor Doran Larson.

Jack Lyons is a rising junior, and is majoring in Asian Studies with a Japanese focus. Since childhood, he has had a profound interest in Japanese culture, especially Samurai.Following this interest, Jack is working with Professor Kyoko Omori on the Japanese silent film, Orochi (1925) & Benshi artists project. For the project, Jack will construct a narrative script in English for the Japanese silent movie, Orochi, and will analyze certain aspects of the movie like its cinematography and the Japanese culture presented in the movie. In addition, Jack will also help create a documentary on the Clinton area that will be used in a workshop this Fall. During the workshop, Hamilton students will be able to create and recite their own Benshi script for the documentary. Jack aims to not only further his knowledge of the Japanese language and culture through this project, but also to learn more about film and how it is created. Hamilton News http://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/the-silent-serpent-understanding-the-role-of-benshi-in-japanese-cinema

Hannah is a member of the class of 2019 from a tiny town in Southwest Iowa. Since spring of her sophomore year she’s been the Office Manager at the DHi, helping to keep everyone (especially Janet) organized and running smoothly. At Hamilton, she’s majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in History and Theatre. She’s fascinated by all types of storytelling, particularly those that use interactive media and emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality.

Alexa Merriam is a Creative Writing major and Music minor at Hamilton College. She designed an original dHi project that fuses her passions for experimental storytelling, spirituality, and nature. Her semester in the Hamilton Adirondack Program has further enhanced her project. In collaboration with Director of the Adirondack Program, Professor Janelle Schwartz, and DHi, she is exploring literature that gives insight into so-called “paranormal” phenomena and engaging with the Adirondack community to gather personal accounts and determine what makes the Adirondacks so conducive for spiritual experiences and practices, -- ranging from meditation to astral projection. Alexa is creating an interactive fiction platform inspired by what she has learned and by her own and others' spiritual journeys. Digital media can best represent the sensory elements of accounts that transcend words. By representing a story in the realest way possible, Alexa aims to emphasize the value that obscure subjects like energy healing, astrology, and parapsychology should have in academia. 

Alexa's reflections blog can be found at: http://amerriam.dhinitiative.org/

Amarilys is a HEOP scholar from Miami and hopes to concentrate in Biology and Hispanic studies. She teaches Spanish at the local elementary school and is a part of the sidekick program. Amarilys also participates with the Outing club on various trips and is on the Trop Sol dance team which focuses on various styles of Latin dance such as bachata, salsa, meringue, tango and many more.  Amarilys is currently working with Professor Nhora Serrano of the Literature department on the Arresting Andean Images: Guaman Poma & Visual Editorialization project which focuses on Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s book “El primer nueva crónica y buen gobierno.” This is a letter written around 1615 to the king of Spain, Phillip the third with over 300 drawings depicting his messages and holds one of the few accounts we have today of Inca civilization and the conquest of Peru by the Spaniards. In this project, Amarilys is analyzing the relationships between image and text and bringing them to life by creating 2-D animations of several images within the book. She hopes to bring more accessibility and understanding of this Colonial Latin American text through this project. 

Hailing from Miami, Terri is a member of the class of 2017. An Africana Studies major, Terri is working with Professor Nieves on the Soweto Historical GIS Project. He joined the DHi his junior year in order to learn more about the intersections of technology and history, and how he can utilize his writing skills to share the stories of others. For fun, he likes to unpack the various messages present in Japanese anime and write poetry.

Andrew Powers was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest close to the waters of Puget Sound. At the bright age of 19, he headed east to Middlebury College, where he studied geography under an incredible faculty of daring thinkers. Andrew loves history, maps and transformative technology... Probably why SHGIS is the best job he's ever had. He currently lives in Seattle.

Ujjwal Pradhan is working on The Beloved Witness, a digital humanities project that aims to create a collaborative digital archive for the works of a Kashmiri American poet, Agha Shahid Ali. Shahid ia a famous Kashmiri-American poet who popularized ghazal form of poetry and represented the Kashmiri struggle in his poems. Ujjwal is working with Professor Patricia O’Neill in getting a deeper understanding of Shahid’s works as the archive is being built. Ujjwal worked as a journalist for a national newspaper during his gap year in Nepal, and has keenly followed South Asian geo-politics. With the Witness project, he is attempting to use his knowledge to comprehend the Kashmiri struggle through Shahid’s poems. Besides creating an interactive archive interface for readers to learn about Shahid’s life and works, he is also very interested in using the new technology in analyzing literary texts like Shahid’s.

Will Rasenberger is a philosophy major and government minor whose interests include identity formation, political theory, and the theory behind just public policy. He plans to study law following his matriculation from Hamilton College. In addition to his work with the DHI, he is treasurer of the Hamilton College Law Society, and a tutor with Hamilton Reads. His long time interest in social justice and especially hearing the voice of historically silenced groups has led him to collaborate with Professor Larson on his American Prison Writing Archive project. The archive, which is growing all the time, houses essays written by American prisoners, their family members, and correctional officers. Will is responsible, along with student interns, for selecting essays to be archived, collecting metadata about these essays, and transcribing them. Professor Larson's recent grant from the NEH will enable this project to branch out over the coming years in currently unforeseeable ways. Will is looking forward to the summer, when he will stay up at Hamilton College and continue to help grow, modernize, and expand the reach of the American Prison Writing Archive. Will hopes to gain valuable knowledge of data accumulation and how to leverage data--and digital humanities in general-- to pursue worthy social justice objectives.

Baillie Riggs is a freshman at Hamilton College, who hopes to double major in Chinese and Religious Studies. She joined the DHi the second semester of her freshman year. She currently assists Professor Bartle on the Refugee Project, gathering interviews and information on refugees in the nearby city of Utica. She hopes to be able to apply what she learns at the DHi to further her knowledge of technology and apply it to life after college.

Will is a member of the Class of 2018, from Concord, Massachusetts. He is a History major, and started work for the DHi this semester. He is currently working on Voices from the Water’s Edge, and has been learning technical video and audio recording skills to apply to the project. Through his work with the DHi, he is hoping to gain valuable knowledge about video recording, in hopes of using them in other projects.

Sydney Rutman is a member of the class of 2013, majoring in Sociology and minoring in Education at Hamilton College. She recently returned from a semester studying in Australia at the University of Sydney. Currently, she is working with Dr. Erol Balkan on the early (pre-filming) stages of his documentary, "The Euphrates Project." She is working as a production and development intern. Sydney previously interned in the development department at Animal Planet (Discovery Communications) this past summer and hopes to further her understanding and skills in the media industry.

Philippa (Pippa) Schwarzkopf is the Digital Humanities Initiative's post-baccalaureate research fellow. As a senior DHi intern, Pippa worked on a variety of oral history projects, both capturing interviews as a videographer and creating archives as a metadata cataloguer. Following graduation, she is continuing to assist on projects as a videographer, video editor, and creative consultant while training the interns who will continue the DHi's exploration of documentary film as a research component. She is currently pursuing a career in independent film with an interest in multimedia and alternative forms of interactive narrative. Through her work with the DHi, Pippa is hoping to improve her technological literacy, further her skills in film production, and gain exposure to a growing field of creative approaches to integrated digital scholarship.

Lainie Smith is a sophomore at Hamilton College. She is originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She is concentrating in Creative Writing and minoring in Religious Studies. As an intern with the Digital Humanities Initiative, she is working with Professor Abhishek Amar on his “Sacred Centers” project. By working with DHi, Lainie hopes to hone her skills in communications and research and apply her knowledge of innovative digital technology to represent creative ideas.Hamilton News http://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/smith-16-studies-the-practice-of-meditation

Nicolas Sohl is a Southern California native that uses GIS and photography as a medium to highlight the connections between, and use of, our natural, urban, and social environments. Nicolas’s photography has been shown in several solo shows and was featured by National Geographic and CNN. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and his work is enriched by his studies in geography. He currently lives in St. Kitts and Nevis, where he concurrently works with the SHGIS and works as a project manager for on-island development projects. His work with the SHGIS has focused on understanding and visualizing the spatial-temporal dynamics of African neighborhood removals in the 19th and 20th century in order to better understand how forced removals to Soweto effected neighborhood population densities and public health in Johannesburg and Soweto.

Lindsey is a member of the class of 2020 from Houston, Texas.  She will most likely be majoring in philosophy or government.  She is currently working with Professor Nhora Serrano in her project: Arresting Andean Images: Guaman Poma & Visual Editorialization. She hopes to take this experience to learn new skills, especially in the analysis of images and 2D and 3D models—which she has never done before.  Lindsey’s favorite things to do are taking naps, hiking, going to the beach, and reading!

Randall Telfer is a rising senior at Hamilton College, majoring in both Chinese language and World Politics. He recently returned from a semester abroad at the Minzu University of China located in Beijing, where he studied advanced modern Chinese and Classical Chinese, and also conducted research on the environmental ethics of Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist teachings. While in China, he also made his debut as an amateur Xiangsheng performer. Back in his hometown of Avon, CT, however, no one wants to see him on a stage of any kind. Telfer joins the Digital Humanities Initiative at Hamilton College with an interest in the Cult of Confucius as well as the relationship between Confucian teachings and the environment.

Brynna Tomassone is a member of the class of 2012, just having returned from her junior year abroad as part of the Hamilton College Academic Year in Spain program. Ms. Tomassone is double majoring in Hispanic Studies and Africana Studies, with a particular interest in the socio-politic-linguistic influence of the African diaspora on women in the Caribbean. Ms. Tomassone will deliver a paper entitled 'The Use of Study Abroad in the Development of a Global Multicultural Perspective for Preservice Teachers in both Kenya and the United States' at the International Conference on Education at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa in July, 2011. Additionally, she is completing a Culture Liberal Arts and Society Scholar (CLASS) fellowship, working on a Digital Humanities project documenting the Soweto uprising in 1976. In collaboration with Dr. Angel Nieves and his work on the Soweto '76 Digital Archive, Ms. Tomassone is hoping to raise awareness to social justice issues by linking global perspectives and the human experience. Ms. Tomassone plans to pursue her scholarly interests in graduate school abroad.

Talia Vaughan is a member of the class of 2018 from Madison, New Hampshire. She is a Religious Studies major with other interests in Anthropology and History. She started her work with the Digital Humanities Initiative in her sophomore year, working first on the NOLA project, transcribing oral histories for use in the collection. She is currently working with Dr. Nieves on the Soweto Project, completing projects such as a timeline of the Mandela family home, mapping of mine hostels surrounding Johannesburg, South Africa, and beginning work on digitizing and preserving artifacts from Soweto. Through her work with the DHi, Talia is hoping to improve her technology skills in order to explore the possibility of documenting and preserving the voices and concerns of minority groups and individuals.

Kevin Xiao is a Computer Science major (and Economics minor) at Hamilton College. He got involved with the Digital Humanities initiative during the second semester of his Junior year while attending "Introduction to Digital Humanities" taught by Prof. Nieves. He currently assists Greg Lord with DHi's 3D modeling and virtual environment projects, including Blender and Unity-related tasks.