Heritage Reconstructed is a team-based project consisting of four students in Digital Humanities: Methods and Practices (Spring 2020) with Dr. Bret Maney.
Christofer Gass is a student in the Digital Humanities Masters Program at CUNY, The Graduate Center. His capstone project is a text-based game of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. While an undergrad at Columbus State University he received his B.A. in Art History with a minor in Geography. While attending CSU, Christofer was deeply involved with the arts in Columbus. As an intern, he worked with the Bo Bartlett Center, the Columbus Museum and CSU’s Illges Gallery. As an employee, he worked for Bo Bartlett Studios and Alan Rothschild’s Do Good Fund, a collection of Contemporary Photography of the American South. As a volunteer, Christofer directed Bartlett’s Home Is Where The Art Is; an art program for the homeless community and assisted Bartlett with Art in Jails; an art program for inmates in Muscogee County Jail. He was also on the board of the Historic District Preservation Society.
Christofer’s role within Heritage Reconstructed is Developer and UX/UI Designer. In addition to these roles, Christofer also assists with research and documentation.
Marcela F. González is a sociologist, enrolled in the MA in Digital Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Marcela aims to use digital skills and tools for her research on immigration from Africa to Italy. Her capstone project, “Visual Representations of the Mediterranean Crisis,” uses digital methods and tools, and consists of data visualization and analysis of immigration statistics, interactive maps of immigration, and analysis of the photographs published in newspapers in Italy and social media between 2014 and 2020 on the so-called Mediterranean crisis.
Marcela’s role within Heritage Reconstructed is research and documentation.
Ashley Rojas is a student at The Graduate Center, CUNY in the Master’s Program for Digital Humanities. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Classical Archaeology and Classical Studies, with a minor in Computer Science. Her interests are in the digitization of archaeological sites after being exposed to projects during her undergraduate career such as Learning Sites Inc., which created virtual reconstructions of archaeological sites as they would have looked during use. Two weeks after attending a lecture showcasing one such reconstruction, Ashley learned that that same site was destroyed due to warfare. As a student, Ashley sympathizes with those struggling to gain access to data and published scholarship, much of which is reserved for those with the proper means or funding to acquire them. Heritage Reconstructed was inspired by the aforementioned restrictiveness by allowing others to access the data more easily, as well as the potential threats to archaeological sites.
Ashley is the Project Manager for Heritage Reconstructed, as well as one of the Developers and UX/UI Designers. As Project Manager, she ensures the group remains organized and on task as well as supporting all areas of the project that may need assistance; as a Developer, she uses her computer science skills to work on the website and database; as a UX/UI Designer, she makes sure that Heritage Reconstructed reaches its intended audience through design and representation.
Margael St Juste is a digital humanities student at the CUNY graduate Center. She earned her undergraduate degree in History and a minor in Economics with honors. She completed her independent research thesis on the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 detailing the reciprocity of influence between the two regime's leaders in the interim world war period. She also completed relevant projects on black identity, black scholarship, and middle east studies. In her current academic pursuit Margael is focusing on 20th and 21st century neocolonial systems and practices through the political paradigms of self-determination and sovereignty. Margael hopes to use digital tools and platforms to enrich scholarly conversation on these topics and to build technologies of access and visibility for other digital humanists with neocolonial barriers.
Margael is the outreach coordinator for the Heritage Reconstructed project which is dedicated to digital and virtual reconstruction of sites in peril. She is in charge of email communications with academics and digital scholars, including those whose work serves as the foundation of our project. In addition, she promotes public conversation about the project on social media platforms as well as within digital humanities spaces.