Author Biographies

Giovanni Bellavia Film Director

Rahul Bhargava Rahul Bhargava is an educator, researcher, designer, and facilitator who builds collaborative projects to interrogate our datafied society with a focus on rethinking participation and power in data processes. He has created big data research tools to investigate media attention, built hands-on interactive museum exhibits that delight learners of all ages, and run over 100 workshops to build data culture in newsrooms, non-profits, and libraries. With Catherine D’Ignazio, he built Databasic.io, a suite of tools and activities that introduce learners from various domains to working with data. Rahul has collaborated with a wide range of groups, from the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil to the St. Paul library system and the World Food Program. His academic work on data literacy, technology, and civic media has been published in journals such as the International Journal of Communication, the Journal of Community Informatics, and been presented at conferences such as IEEE Vis and ICWSM. His museum installations have appeared at the Boston Museum of Science, Eyebeam in New York City, and the Tech Interactive in San Jose. Rahul is an Assistant Professor in Journalism and Art + Design at Northeastern University, where he directs the Data Culture Group.

Christina Boyles Christina Boyles is an Assistant Professor of Culturally-engaged Digital Humanities in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University. Her research explores the relationship between digital humanities, surveillance, social justice, and the environment. Her published work appears in Bodies of Information: Feminist Debates in the Digital Humanities, American Quarterly, The Southern Literary Journal, The South Central Review, and Plath Profiles.

Steven Braun Steven Braun is the Data Analytics and Visualization Specialist in the Digital Scholarship Group in the Northeastern University Libraries. In this role, he provides support to students, faculty, and staff in incorporating data visualization tools into their scholarship through consultations, in-depth project work, and workshops.

Christopher Church Dr. Christopher M. Church is an assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches colonial, environmental, and digital history. Specializing in disasters, collective action, and civil unrest, his wider research agenda addresses the historical relationship between citizens, the public sphere, and the state. He is the author of Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean, which won the Alf Andrew Heggoy Book Prize in 2018. He has worked on numerous digital humanities projects, including Pryor's Peoria, The Online Edition of the Journals of Alfred Doten, and an online archive of neon in Northern Nevada. His current research project focuses on the historical development of and resistance to our increasingly globalized world, which includes, among other things, the cultural, social, and economic ties between historical piracy and present-day hacking.

Catherine D'Ignazio Catherine D’Ignazio is a scholar, artist/designer and hacker mama who focuses on feminist technology and data justice. She has run reproductive justice hackathons, designed global news recommendation systems, created talking and tweeting water quality sculptures, and led walking data visualizations to envision the future of sea level rise. With Rahul Bhargava, she built the platform Databasic.io, a suite of tools and activities to introduce newcomers to data science. Her 2020 book from MIT Press, Data Feminism, co-authored with Lauren Klein, charts a course for more ethical and empowering data science practices. Since 2019, she has co-organized Data Against Feminicide, a participatory action-research-design project, with Silvana Fumega and Helena Suárez Val. D'Ignazio's research at the intersection of technology, design and social justice has been published in Patterns, the Journal of Community Informatics, and the proceedings of Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM SIGCHI). Her art and design projects have won awards from the Tanne Foundation, Turbulence.org and the Knight Foundation and exhibited at the Venice Biennial and the ICA Boston. D’Ignazio is an Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is also Director of the Data + Feminism Lab which uses data and computational methods to work towards gender and racial justice, particularly in relation to space and place.

Viviana De Angelis Viviana De Angelis is a researcher in the Department of Education, Psychology and Communication at the University of Bari Aldo Moro, where she carries out research and integrative teaching. Her scholarly interests include theoretical and applied philosophy and pedagogy, with the goal of identifying new development trajectories for an epistemology of educational research with which to filter complex situations and promote humanization.

Daniele De Luca Computer Graphics Generalist

Rosa Gallelli Rosa Gallelli is an associate professor in the Department of Education, Psychology and Communication at the University of Bari Aldo Moro. Gallelli's research focuses on Health Pedagogy and training processes aimed at honoring differences.

Antonella Guidazzoli Head of VisitLab

Katherine Hepworth Dr Katherine Hepworth is an interdisciplinary design practitioner-scholar with a passion for researching and teaching about how the designed world influences people's lived experience, past and present. Currently employed as an Assistant Professor of Visual Journalism at The Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno, she teaches communication design, data visualization, innovation, and visual communication. Specializing in theorizing how visual communication mediates human power relationships, she applies that theory to assess visual communication effectiveness in a range of professional and pedagogical contexts. Her current research projects include the ethics of data visualizations, effective visual communication in hospital emergency departments, and a digital humanities project on the interconnected sociopolitical and typographic legacies of twentieth century American neon. Hepworth has over fourteen years professional experience as a visual communication designer, focusing on information design and user experience design.

Silvano Imboden Computer Graphics and Scientific Visualisation Specialist

Ingrida Kelpšienė Ingrida Kelpšienė is a junior researcher and PhD candidate at Vilnius University Faculty of Communication.

Maria Chiara Liguori Head and Founder of MUVI: Museo Virtual della vita quotidiana (Virtual Museum of Everyday Life)

Patricia Mannix McNamara Patricia Mannix McNamara is currently Head of the School of Education in the University of Limerick. She began her career as a post primary school teacher before completing her PhD in the examination of supervisory relationships from a critical theory perspective. Patricia teaches courses on leadership, teacher professionalism, research methods in Ireland and abroad at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Amy Papaelias Amy Papaelias is Associate Professor in Graphic Design at SUNY New Paltz.

Deanna Shemek Professor and Chair of Literature, Co-Director of IDEA: Isabella d'Este Archive

Yvette Shen Yvette Shen is an assistant professor at the Department of Design at Ohio State University. Prior to joining OSU, she worked as an assistant professor at James Madison University School of Media Arts and Design, and University of Utah Department of Communication. She formerly practiced web, interactive, and print design for clients such as Lenox Hill, HGTV, ESPN, Saucony, Abbott, Novartis, Comcast, and numerous renowned art galleries in New York City. Her current research and creative work is mainly focused on information design, information and data visualizations.

Luigi Verri Web Developer and Computer Graphics Generalist