Author Biographies

Annmarie Akong Annmarie Akong is a graduate of the York Sheridan Bachelor of Design program (2009). She is practicing interactive and user-centric design at digital agencies in Toronto and has worked for clients such as Citibank, Glad, and Panasonic.

Matt Bouchard Matt Bouchard is a recent graduate of the University of Alberta (MA Humanities Computing, 2010) where he also completed a combined BSc in Computing Science and Creative Writing. Professionally, Matt is an implementation and technology consultant for research groups, businesses, and even a few government departments. Academically, Matt is looking forward to starting a PhD in sports simulation interface design as a continuation of his interests in video game design, information design, visualization, and implementation advocacy.

Shawn DeSouza-Coelho Shawn DeSouza-Coelho is a Master's student in the Experimental Digital Media program at the University of Waterloo, as well as an associate researcher with the Simulated Environment for Theatre project, and member of the research team for Gamifying Shakespeare: Theorizing and Designing Game-Based Digital Media for Stratford Festival Audience Engagement. He is a lead author of the SET project's paper, "Control Freaks: An Iterative Story of Designing a Scholarly Environment in 3D", which was presented at the 2012 meeting of the Canadian Society for Digital Humanities/Société Canadienne des Humanités Numériques.

Teresa M. Dobson Teresa M. Dobson is Associate Professor and Director of the Digital Literacy Centre housed in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. She holds an interdisciplinary PhD in English literature and secondary education. Her primary areas of expertise are digital literacy, media culture, user experience within digital knowledge environments, and digital applications for literary education. She works with a number of digital humanities teams in Canada on the design and use of digital tools for humanities research and teaching.

Sandra Gabriele Sandra Gabriele has been practicing and teaching design for over twenty-five years. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, the School of Design, Basel and holds a MDes in Visual Communication Design from the University of Alberta. In professional practice, she has designed communications materials for a variety of clients: government organizations, corporations, small businesses and non-profit organizations, in both print and digital media. Her research interests are in the area of typography (legibility and the digital representation of large text collections) and information design (specifically, patient safety initiatives involving graphic design).

Marcelo Hong Marcelo Hong is a recent graduate of the York/Sheridan Joint Program in Design. As a young professional, the majority of his work has been focused on exploring the city as creative space and developing books and magazines for cultural institutions.

Diane Jakacki Diane Jakacki is the Digital Scholarship Coordinator at Bucknell University. Prior to joining Bucknell, Diane was a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is an assistant director of the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, and a member of the digital advisory committees for the Records of Early English Drama, the Map of Early Modern London project and Iter Gateway to the Middle Ages & Renaissance. Diane received her BA in English and History from Lafayette College, an MA in English from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Waterloo, specializing in Early Modern Theatre and Multimedia Theory and Design.

Alexandra Kovacs Alexandra (Sasha) Kovacs is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. Her doctoral research focuses on the performances of E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake). She has published in Canadian Theatre Review (CTR) and is the recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Joseph Armand Bombardier Canadian Graduate Scholarship (CGS). 

David Lam David Lam is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting program. He studied mathematics and drama as an undergraduate at the University of Waterloo.

Lesley Northam Lesley Northam is Lesley Northam is a PhD student in the Computer Graphics Lab at the University of Waterloo. Through collaboration with the Adobe Advanced Technology Lab (ATL), Side Effects Software and the Screen Industries Research and Training Centre (SIRT), she has nurtured research interests in previsualization, virtual production, film language, stereoscopic 3D rendering and non-photorealistic computer graphics.

Helle Porsdam A Professor of American Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Helle Porsdam teaches American history as well as the culture and history of human rights. She holds a PhD in American Studies from Yale University, has been a Liberal Arts Fellow twice at the Harvard Law School, an Arcadia Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study, Munich. Among her books may be mentioned Legally Speaking: Contemporary American Culture and the Law (University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), From Civil to Human Rights: Dialogues on Law and Humanities in the United States and Europe (Edward Elgar, UK, 2009), Copyright and Other Fairy Tales: Hans Christian Andersen and the Commodification of Creativity and Civil Religion, Human Rights and International Relations: Connecting People Across Cultures and Traditions, which she edited for Edward Elgar in 2006 and 2012, respectively. She is the project leader of a HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area, ESF) project on copyright, creativity and cultural heritage institutions (2010-2013).

Manuel Portela Manuel Portela is Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Coimbra. He is a team member of the research project "PO-EX ’70-’80: Digital Archive of Portuguese Experimental Literature" (University Fernando Pessoa, 2010-2012). He is the author of O Comércio da Literatura: Mercado e Representação [The Commerce of Literature: Marketplace and Representation] (Lisbon: Antígona, 2003), a study of the English literary market in the 18th century. He has translated many works, including Songs of Innocence and of Experience (2007) and Milton (2009), by William Blake, and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1997-98), by Laurence Sterne, for which he received the National Award for Translation. In recent years he has been researching electronic editing and digital literature. He is the author of the website DigLitWeb: Digital Literature Web (http://www.ci.uc.pt/diglit), and one of the creators of a new Doctoral Program at the University of Coimbra, "Advanced Studies in the Materialities of Literature" (http://matlit.wordpress.com).

Jennifer Roberts-Smith Jennifer Roberts-Smith is Assistant Professor and Associate Chair, Undergraduate Drama in the Department of Drama and Speech Communication at the University of Waterloo, and Principal Investigator of the Simulated Environment for Theatre project. She serves as Associate Co-Editor, Performance for Queen’s Men Editions and is a member of the boards of directors of Digital Renaissance Editions and the University of Toronto’s Centre for Performance Studies in Early Theatre. She has published articles on early English theatre history, theatre pedagogy, and Elizabethan metrics. Her current research interests include applications of game design to theatre pedagogy and digital approaches to historicizing Shakespeare’s language.

Omar Rodriguez-Arenas Omar Rodriguez-Arenas is systems analyst at the University of Alberta's Arts Resource Centre and a freelance software developer for visualization projects. He holds an M.Sc. in Computing Science (University of Alberta 2010) and a B.Sc. degree in Computing Science (University of Sonora 2004). As part of his research at the University of Alberta's Graphics Lab, Omar worked on simulations of Non-Newtonian fluids. His current research interests include real-time 3D graphics, physically-based animation, and humanities visualization.

Stan Ruecker Stan Ruecker is Associate Professor of Design at the Institute of Design in the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He holds advanced degrees in English, Humanities Computing, and Design, and has expertise in the design of experimental interfaces to support online browsing tasks. His current research interests are in the areas of computer-human interfaces, humanities visualization, and information design.

Robert Schoenbeck Rob Schoenbeck received a PhD in March 2012 from the English Department at the University of California, Irvine, and as of 2013 works as a Senior Learning Skills Counselor, amateur data analyst, web designer, and freelance writer/editor. His dissertation project investigated how algorithmic and human modes of understanding can’t be easily disentangled, and that what we refer to as “computational procedure” in digital media studies — and the arts more generally — reflects less the significance of the thing itself than a particular set of human anxieties and motivations surrounding that thing.

Stéfan Sinclair Stéfan Sinclair is an Associate Professor in Digital Humanities at McGill University. His research focuses primarily on the design, development and theorization of tools for the digital humanities, especially for text analysis and visualization. He has led or contributed significantly to projects such as Voyeur Tools, Simulated Environment for Theatre, and BonPatron. Other professional activities include serving as associate editor for Literary and Linguistic Computing and Digital Humanities Quarterly, as well as serving on the executive boards of SDH/SEMI, ACH, ADHO, and centerNET.

Daniel So Daniel So graduated from York University with a Bachelor of Design Degree (YSDN Program in Design) in 2012. In professional practice, he focuses on the design of motion graphics and has a special interest in storytelling with time-based media.