The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) is pleased to announce the appointment of Jennifer Guiliano as Assistant Director. As Assistant Director, Jennifer will help initiate and manage MITH’s grant projects, work with our Fellows, and supervise our development team of programmers, web designers, graduate students, and interns.
Jennifer currently serves as Associate Director of the Center for Digital Humanities at University of South Carolina, as well as Research Assistant Professor in USC’s Department of History. She brings a wealth of project management and grant writing expertise to MITH, having served as the grant writer and co-primary investigator on a variety of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) funded projects. She is currently involved in an NEH-funded Digging into Image Data project that centers on cultural heritage objects. The research team, co-managed by MATRIX, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at University of Illinois, and the University of Sheffield (UK), is applying computational analysis and universal algorithms to cultural heritage materials, such as maps, quilts, and manuscripts, from the 15th to 21st centuries. In addition to her passion for project management and aptitude for grant writing, Jennifer’s scholarly interest in colonial maps of the Native American territories and image culture drive her current involvement in the project.
Jennifer holds a Ph.D. in History from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include United States History since 1815, particularly Native American culture, and issues of race, ethnicity and cultural hybridity in visual material. While at Illinois, Jennifer became more interested in digital spaces and the field of digital humanities. She is fascinated by “the ways in which the questions of history — cause and effect, narrative, how people envision themselves and their own culture — lead to questions of accessibility and how people produce their identity through their own material.”
For Jennifer, “MITH is a place characterized by disciplinary innovation, with a deep interest in high quality research, theory, and public engagement.” MITH’s Director Neil Fraistat notes, “We are delighted that Jennifer will be joining us. She brings estimable digital humanities expertise and experience, a sophisticated understanding of how to manage complex projects, and a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary set of intellectual interests — not to mention a great sense of humor. With the recent hiring of Associate Director Trevor Muñoz and the move of current Assistant Director Dave Lester to the position of Creative Lead, MITH has a new generation of leadership poised to boldly go where no dh center has gone before.”
Jennifer begins her appointment August 17th. Follow her on Twitter @jenguiliano.