Category: Current Fellows

Bio: Gabby Tapia is a 5th-year PhD candidate in the English department. They are studying 19th-century British literature and ecocriticism, with specific interests in Romantic studies, Spinoza studies, transecology, and the philosophy of the transindividual. Their current DH project utilizes ArcGIS mapping software and the citizen science online platform iNaturalist to bring together poetry, archival data, and environmental observations to communicate the connection between English Romantic poet John Clare’s legacy and ecological conversation efforts happening in the bioregions of his hometown of Helpston today. Their interest in the work of Gilbert Simondon and his transindividual notion of mechanology informs their research and pedagogy which considers the reciprocal relations between humans, nature, and technology. Gabby is also a project assistant at the William Blake Archive. Fall 2023 cohort. (atapia3@ur.rochester.edu)

Bio: Victoria Taormina is a PhD candidate in the Visual and Cultural Studies program. Her research interests include American popular culture, ethnic whiteness, and theories of antiblackness. Her dissertation examines the relationship between Italian colonialism in Africa and Italian immigrant identity in America during the early twentieth century. With the support of the fellowship, she is creating a digital exhibition of her dissertation materials through the Omeka S platform. Fall 2023 cohort. (vtaormin@ur.rochester.edu)

Bio: Rebecca Sanaeikia is a 5th year Ph.D. student in Philosophy at the University of Rochester. Her area of expertise is on the intersection of bioethics, AI/Data Ethics, and Trans philosophy. She is focusing on ethical considerations in [healthcare] data, particularly within the transgender community. Her work delves into the complexities of data management for trans individuals, contemplating ways to ensure that this process is conducted with sensitivity and respect, avoiding harm to both individuals and their communities. Rebecca also currently serves as a Research Assistant for a project aimed at enhancing shared decision-making processes among older adults. Fall 2024 cohort. (becca.sanaeikia@rochester.edu)

Bio: Dylan Palmer is a PhD student in the Visual and Cultural Studies program, specializing in the study of cinema. His DH project revolves around the use of QGIS to map filming locations in a variety of films, most recently Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. He is interested in how digital tools can help unearth the urban and social history that film continuously documents, as well as the relationship between digital and filmic modelings of space and time. Fall 2023 cohort. (dpalm10@ur.rochester.edu)

Bio: dani garcia holds a B.A. Religious Studies, California State University, Fullerton; an M.A. in Linguistics, California State University, Long Beach; and an M.A. English, Arizona State University. A PhD Candidate in English, dani’s area of interest is 19th and 20th-century non-canonical American literature, focusing on literature by, for, and about migrant, immigrant, and underrepresented populations. This research integrates a range of digital tools for text mining to support critical literary analysis. As part of the fellowship program, dani has worked on Morris Eaves’ Blake Archive project and Michael Jarvis’ Digital Kormantin project. Currently, dani is working with the Rochester Public Library on the Archive of Black History project. Fall 2023 cohort. (dgarc20@ur.rochester.edu)

Bio: Bridget Fleming is a 6th year Ph.D. Candidate in the Visual and Cultural Studies program at the University of Rochester. Her research interests include: contemporary art, feminism, experimental film, sound studies, and collaborative art practices. Her dissertation focuses on histories of feminist film and video production, paying particular attention to the treatment of the voice by feminist practitioners. Her digital humanities project builds on this research. In collaboration with the Visual Studies Workshop’s curator Tara Nelson, and preservation specialist Nilson Carroll, Bridget is working on a project to digitally enhance the Portable Channel Collection using Mediate. Portable Channel is a collection of videos made by artists and activists working in Rochester during the 1970s. Bridget will be in conversation with community member to digitally annotate a selection of Portable Channel videos and make it newly accessible to both researchers and the Rochester community. The collaborative project will eventually be housed on a website, created on Omeka S. Fall 2024 cohort. (bflemin6@ur.rochester.edu)

Bio: Lauren Berlin is PhD candidate in musicology whose work explores the intersection of television, broadcasting history, and music. Her digital humanities project challenges the dominance of visual data in historical research by emphasizing the significance of sound and auditory archives, particularly in understanding cultural history. She asks how library catalog entries can express racial tensions at play in musical programming on TV, particularly in the afterlife of minstrelsy out of blackface. Her project leverages the extensive – but unprocessed – J. Fred and Leslie MacDonald Collection at the Library of Congress to develop more robust metadata schemas and tagging conventions to facilitate deeper archival and cultural analysis. Fall 2024 cohort. (lberlin@u.Rochester.edu)

Bio: (https://baron.digitalscholar.rochester.edu/) is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Rochester. His dissertation examines treasure law in the medieval and early modern Hispanic world. With the support of the Meliora Digital and Interdisciplinary Fellowship, he is producing a digital database and GIS mapping project that compiles and visualizes premodern treasure-hunting and grave-robbing excavations across Iberia, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Fall 2024 cohort. (jbaron4@ur.rochester.edu)