What I Do

Currently, I am the Associate Director of Public Projects at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Read more about what I did before coming to CHNM.

Work | Write | Present | Review

Work on Digital Humanities and Tools Projects

Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

Associate Director of Public Programs, January 2010-present
Senior Digital History Associate, October 2005-December 2009

Currently, I manage a variety of grant-funded and contract digital history projects. I work closely with institutional partners and CHNM staff on web and software development; coordinate project outreach efforts and publicity; make presentations and give workshops to diverse audiences about CHNM projects. Each year, I collaborate on writing federal and private foundation grant applications. And for grants and contracts we receive, I manage grant and contract deliverables to ensure projects are completed on time and on budget.

These are a few projects I have worked on recently (oldest to most recent):
• Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (http://hurricanearchive.org), Project Manager: digital collecting and archiving project to save the stories from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Earned Award of Merit for Leadership in History by American Association of State and Local History, 2007.
• Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives (http://gulaghistory.org), Project Manager: online exhibition exposes the hidden history of the Soviet gulag, funded by National Endowment for the Humanities.
• Omeka, (http://omeka.org), Omeka.net (http://omeka.net) End User Outreach Coordinator: web publishing platform designed to collect, archive, and/or exhibit history content, funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Project earned Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration, 2008.
• Mobile for Museums (http://chnm.gmu.edu/labs/mobile-for-museums/), Project Manager, white paper co-author: digital white paper combines research on mobile usage in museums with development recommendations, and mobile prototypes, funded by the Samuel L. Kress Foundation.
• Project Manager projects in development with the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Smithsonian National Postal Museum, and coalition of Smithsonian museums.
• Occupy Archive (http://occupyarchive.org), Co-Director: archive and online collecting site that is documenting and saving the digital evidence and stories from the Occupy protests in 2011.

From 2009-2010, I was selected as a Humanities, Arts , Science, Technology Collaborative (HASTAC) Scholar.

I also am lucky enough to participate in and assist with various events hosted and developed by my colleagues at CHNM, including THATCamp, One Week | One Tool; Archiving Social Media; and Summit on Digital Tools for Museum Education.

Write about Digital Humanities

• “Collecting and Preserving Memories of the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes,” Ant Spider Bee, solicited, March 29, 2012, http://antspiderbee.net/2012/03/hurricane-digital-memory-bank/
• “A First Look at the Occupy Archive,” solicited, In Media Res, December 9, 2001, with Sharon Leon.
• “Oral History in the Digital Age,” Oxford Handbook of Oral History, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), forthcoming, with James Halabuk, Sharon Leon, Tom Scheinfeldt, and Kelly Schrum.
• “Intentional Alts,” conversation with Jeremy Boggs in #alt-academy: Alternative Academic Careers for Humanities Scholars
• Contributed to Hacking the Academy, crowd-sourced website.
• “Why Collecting History Online is Web 1.5,” Center for History and New Media case study, March 2009, with T. Mills Kelly.
• “Taking a Byte Out of the Archives: Making Technology Work for You,” Perspectives (January 2005) with Douglas Mudd, Kirklin Bateman, and Paula Petrik.

Write About US History

• Moroney Prize for Scholarship in Postal History, 2010 for my dissertation, Stamping American Memory, Stamp Collecting in the US, 1880s-1930s
• “‘Little Colored Bits of Paper’ Collected in the Progressive Era,”Select Papers of the William M. Blount Symposia(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2010).
• Encyclopedia of New England Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 3 entries.
• “The Vindex Special: Learning about Technology Through Advertising,”
  Magazine of History, (Winter 1998) with Susan Smulyan and Carlita Kosty.

Present on Digital Tools and Digital Humanities

• Give workshops, tutorials, demonstrations on Omeka and Omeka.net platform at a variety of meetings, unconferences, bootcamps, and other venues.
• “History Museums are Not Art Museeums–Discuss,” Roundtable Discussion Lead, Museum Computer Network conference, November 2011.
• “CHNM & Digital History,” invited presentation, University of West Virginia, November 2010.
• Getting Your Content to Go: Mobile Content Design, co-facilitator, American Association of Museums Annual Conference, May 2010.
• “Digital-Jump Start,” co-facilitator, American Association of Museums Annual Conference, May 2010.
• “Omeka for Publishing Research,” conference presentation, Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, April 2010.
• “Digital-Jump Start,” co-facilitator working group, National Council on Public History Conference, March 2010.
• “Omeka for Museums,” workshop, National Council on Public History Conference, March 2010.
• “Digitization for Dummies, Omeka for Museums,” conference presentation, Virginia Association of Museums Conference, March 2009.
• “Using Omeka in Small Museums,” conference presentation, Small Museums Association Conference, February 2009.
• “Omeka: Exhibit Collections Online in the Age of Web 2.0,” case study showcase, Museum Computing Network Conference, November 2008.
• “Hurricane Digital Memory Bank: Collecting and Sharing the Stories from the Storms,” conference presentation, Oral History Association Conference, October 2008.
• “Crossing the Digital Divide,” conference workshop lead, American Association for the History of Nursing, September 2008.
• “Collections Access in a Time of Technical Innovation and Fiscal Constraints – Challenges, Conflicts, & Solutions,” conference panel, Naval History Workshop, June 2007.
• “Past/Forward: Collecting History in the Digital Universe” American Association for the History of Computing Conference, April 2006. http://past-forward.org/index.html
• “Collecting and Preserving Hurricane Stories Online,” poster, Texas Association of Museums Annual Conference, April 2006.

Present on US History

• “Constructing and Circulating Historical Narratives on Stamps,” conference paper, National Council on Public History Conference, Penscaola, FL, April 2011
• “Remembering the Past, Shaping the Present with Commemoratives,” conference paper, 2010 Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposium, Washington, DC, September 2010.
• “Little Colored Bits of Paper Collected in the Progressive Era,” conference presentation, Winton M. Blount Symposium on Postal History, Washington, DC, November 2006.

Review Things