Projects
The below are an assortment of projects from over the years that don’t fit cleanly into the categories of the academic CV. What binds many of them together is my interest in how visual culture is used to present information and affect audiences, from documentary films to web design and public signage.
Teaching with Technology Portfolio (2024)
Penn State’s The Teaching with Technology Certificate (TWT) shows that an instructor has demonstrated the innovative use of technology in teaching. The certificate is awarded based on each department’s assessment of the applicant’s web-based portfolio. I have incorporated the portfolio into this site as a series of blog posts.
COVID-19 Signage Project (2021–present)
This is a long-term photography project, the subject of which are signs that have caught my attention throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These include floor markers, masks required signs, and (in a broad interpretation of “signs” and “signage”) cast aside facemasks seen on sidewalks and parking lots.
I am interested in these as both a personal historical record of this period, and also as examples of how forms of technical communication can express the brand, culture, and political beliefs of an institution or business. As an example of the final, “Masks Required” is different from “Masks Encouraged” is different from “Governor Tom Wolf has ordered that all customers must wear a mask when entering our business.”
Visualization of the character Breq’s individual identity relative to a collective artificial intelligence in Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie.
The Global Asias Initiative Project Manager responsibilities include social media management and the production of digital assets. As part of my application for that position, I prepared this compilation of various design projects that I have worked on. I have since added samples of the design work I completed while in that role.
This timeline includes milestones in computing history, the publication dates of various fiction and non-fiction narratives about computing, and the time settings of a number of those narratives. I created this as part of my preparation for comprehensive exams and for my dissertation, so it is not comprehensive in the sense that it revolves around my specific dissertation project. But since the timeline tool I’m using (Northwestern University Knightlab’s Timeline) live-updates and publishes to the web, I figured I might as well make it public just in case it’s useful to anyone else.
“The Shuffle” (2012)
“The Shuffle” is a comedy short film that I wrote, directed, and edited. I created it in part as a personal experiment in the feasibility of producing a short film project within a sharply defined time frame and budget. I was also interested in the ways that individual artists’ skills, perspectives, and interests can inflect what is ultimately a fairly generic plot (influenced in part by George and Marty’s scheme in Back to the Future).
“Walking Merchandise: Child Trafficking and the Snakehead Trade” (2012)
“Walking Merchandise” is a documentary short film that tells the stories of children trafficked from China to the United States for labor. It describes the elaborate systems and human costs of the “snakehead” smuggling practice, and wrestles with the challenges of attempting to mitigate the harms of this deeply complex international problem.
The project was funded in part by Columbia University’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity, and grew out of director Ethan Downing’s Master’s thesis in Columbia’s Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program. As producer, I managed production logistics, helped facilitate a successful Kickstarter funding campaign, and collaborated on the overall creative direction of the project.