Category Archives: Posts

Bio and Contribution

Phil contributes expertise as an information technology worker with a focus on software development.  He has specialized in the construction of database applications and data driven websites.  Currently working on a master’s degree in Liberal Studies with a concentration in American Studies, he completed his undergraduate work in Latin American History.  His research explores the role of banks in the emergence of liberal democracy and the periodic resurgence of social movements centered around the nation, authority, and white supremacy .  Phil contributes to open source technologies, open data, and data privacy initiatives.  As an instructor of computer literacy and English as a second language, he is committed to the transformative role of education in addressing systemic inequities.  When he is not reading, writing, or coding, he can be found exploring the music worlds of Honky Tonk, Irish jigs, and San Juanitos.

Phil’s primary role will be as a contributor to the team’s technology efforts, including
web development, website administration, and technology infrastructure. His
secondary role will be as a contributor to content management efforts.

Bio and Contribution

Maggi Delgado is a first-year Digital Humanities MA student. With a BA in Media Studies, Maggi is interested in media production, media analysis, storytelling, and education. With a background as an educator, Maggi has experience teaching, creating curriculums, and facilitating workshops. She also creates multimedia projects, including short films, podcasts, and short-form social media content. The COVID Student Archive combines Maggi’s education and storytelling skills, and passion.

Maggi Delgado is the multimedia producer, working with the team to record, edit, publish, archive videos, audios, and other media assets. Maggi helps the students/participants create dynamic, multimodal stories, making sure they are accessible and shareable.

Journal Entry 1

We had a good start to our project, NYC Community Fridges Archive. I am very excited to be a part of this project and be working with my teammates on board. First things we discussed were roles and methods of communication. The magic of group work is that there could be a person in the group who is very much interested in doing a task you dread 🙂 Not to mean I dread any task 🙂  (really, I’ll do whatever it takes to get a project done, especially if I am this excited about it) but as is in this case, I would much rather be a developer and researcher (I am also in charge of IRB and Media Lab application) than the writer or social media person. In short, I am very satisfied at the moment with our division of tasks- and I feel like we all are. Not to mention, we are all willing to chip in if and when needed, to help one another out. We  also will soon meet Micki and Digital Fellows, which I think we are all looking forward to. Community spirit and good vibes all around. 

Secondly, we picked our means of communication/organization – we use Trello for scheduling and keeping track of tasks, Slack for instant communication/brainstorming, and email for sharing docs and communication about main tasks, and have scheduled a regular weekly Zoom meeting for brainstorming, tying things up, and making decisions. It has been working well so far. Our project plan has been taking shape and I have a much better idea of what we will need to do in the coming days/weeks. I find creating that schema in your head/solidifying the action plan to be a critical part of any project, so I feel good in that sense. Looking forward to solidifying things more, defining deliverables, and building our beautiful project. 

Bianca’s skills

BIANCA F.-C. CALABRESI (she/they): BA, MA, & PhD in Comparative Literature/Visual Culture; current first-year MA student in DH, CUNY, and Humanities instructor at Columbia.

Background:  I bound my first book at 7 and have been an ephemera maker and dead-technology historian ever since (Editor of a literary magazine produced on linotype and newsprint. Assistant letterpress printer for Peter Koch, Blackstone Press, etc.).

Professionally, I worked for a decade in catalogue and exhibition creation—research, editing, and design—at a range of museums (e.g. Philadelphia Museum of Art; Whitney; TheMet);  I’ve been teaching and writing about early modern book history and women’s cultural production for twenty+ years: I’ve published on a range of bizarre topics, from red ink as simulated blood in printed pamphlets to samplers as sites of alternative female literacies.

Project Management:  As a leader/follower/mediator for three decades in non-profit and academic service work, I’ve happily been the note-taker and the committee chair.  I can run a meeting in under an hour with everyone talking.  I enjoy resolving conflict and finding consensus. I’m paid to keep higher-ed students on task. I’m the last to leave and I’ll put the project to bed.  

Research: I specialize in the deep-dive across a wide range—I love to find and assess scholarship, primary materials or archives, and current discourse/debates in any discipline.  Particular areas of skill: Visual Culture; Global Literature; Legal and Social History; Text and Technology Studies.  I read/write/speak Italian & French well; I can manage reading German, Spanish, French Creole, and other Germanic/Romance cognates as needed.  

Development: This is my area of least knowledge and where I’m most excited to learn.  I’m quick at absorbing info and willing to do extra training.  I would love to shadow members of the team and I embrace non-lethal failure.

Design/UX: I have strictly analog design skills other than some basic platforms we explored in the first semester. However,

I bring substantial knowledge of the histories of UX—shifts in information production, reading habits, visualization of material, “national” typographies, theories of “clean” design and their cultural limits. 

My letterpress years trained me to attend to tiny details and adjustments, as well as to the implications of font, color, image, framing, etc., and the differences in digital and print design.

I do professional-grade, fast, and thorough copy-editing, proof-reading, fact-checking on a regular basis.

Outreach:  I’m an enthusiastic, quick-thinking marketer of the unlikely (i.e.:  500-year-old obscure material).  I use Twitter and Instagram as tools to find and create intellectual and artistic communities and to foster new ideas and projects for good.  I have considerable experience in grant-reading and funding proposals in non-profit sectors.  I talk to strangers on the bus; cold-call Ohio Republicans; sell first-year students on epic poetry and their parents on careers in painting conservation; in other words, no fear.