Major Professional Projects
2011 Information Technology Specialist, National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), Library of Congress
I am specifically working on NDIIPP’s Technical Architecture Team. This brief news post describes some of my work. Of several projects, I am most directly involved in managing the Recollection project. Recollection is an open source platform for interpreting and creating interfaces to digital cultural heritage collections. I am also working on several other projects related to discovery and access systems, as well as serving on the innovation and infrastructure working groups of the newly founded National Digital Stewardship Alliance.
Competencies: Project management, open source software development,
2011 Adjunct Faculty Member, History Department, American University
I designed and taught a graduate seminar, History in the Digital Age. The course explores the current and potential impact of digital media on the theory and practice of history. It specifically focuses on how digital tools and resources are enabling new methods for analysis in traditional print scholarship and the possibilities for new forms of scholarship. For the former, it focuses on tools for text analysis and visualization as well as work on interpreting new media forms as primary sources. For the latter, it focuses on exploring a range of production of new media history resources, including both practical work on project management and design. As part of this process, we read a range of works on designing, interpreting and understanding digital media.
The syllabus is available online for review. Further, part of the design of the course challenges students to develop skills in public writing. To this end, much of the courses discussions and dialog is available for review on the course blog.
Competencies: College level teaching, guiding student research and design projects
2008-2010 Enhancing Historical Research With Text-Mining and Analysis Tools
A two-year study of the potential of text-mining tools for historical and humanities scholarship. As program manager I worked to design, conduct and analyze a survey of historians to examine their use of digital resources and prospect for particularly helpful uses of digital technology. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities Project Director Daniel Cohen, Funding: $340,000 Role: Program Manager
As the Program Manager I developed and administered an open -ended survey of more than 200 practicing historians and history professionals and convened a sub-set of those participants as a virtual panel to review and evaluate digital historical tools and resources. I then worked with a team of developers to design a series of proof of concept tools based on the insights gleaned from the survey and panel. I am currently working with Fredrick Gibbs and Dan Cohen to develop a series of journal articles to disseminate the results of this work. You can view the ongoing panel discussions on the nexthistory.org website.
Competencies: Survey Design, data analysis, website design, grant proposal writing, research report writing
2006- 2010 Zotero: Outreach and Open Source Development
An open-source research tool now used by hundreds of thousands of scholars. Project supported by several grants. Zotero Commons, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, $514,000, 2008-2009; Zotero 2.0, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, $890,000,2006-2008; Zotero 1.0, funding from Institute of Museum and Library Services, $250,000, 2006-2007 Project Director: Daniel Cohen Role: Community Lead
As the Community Lead I have Developed multi-media online learning materials and face-to-face workshops for Zotero, an Open Source research tool used by both professionals and in K-16. I have presented on Zotero at the Library of Congress, the National Institutes of Health, the National Archives, and a wide range of research institutions and institutions of higher learning. For examples of this work see the Zotero blog, the tools documentation, and the screencasts I composed.
Professional Service
2009-2010 Executive Board Member American Association for History and Computing. As a board member I participate in running the organization. This year I am responsible for chairing the annual conference and co-editing the conference proceedings.
2009 National History Day Judge: Senior level historical websites. I served as a judge for k-12 students historical websites. The experience gave me insight into how these students and their teachers are making use of web technologies to communicate historical arguments.
2005-2006 Outreach Coordinator: Games Learning, and Society Conference. As the outreach coordinator I helped to ensure the initial success of this conference. My work on outreach led to targeted press coverage.
2004-2005 Literacy Coach: Teach For America: Mentor for the Teach for America after-school program at Shank Elementary in Madison Wisconsin. Through a year-long experience as a after school literacy coach for second and forth grade boys at Shank elementary I gained first hand experience with the difficult but deeply worthwhile role such after school programs can play in literacy instruction.
Service as a Reviewer
Reviewer, International Conference on The Learning Sciences, 2010
Reviewer, annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, 2006
Reviewer, American Educational Research Association Conference, 2006
Reviewer, Public Understanding of Science, 2010