People

Jim Brown

Director
jamesjbrownjr.net
jim.brown@rutgers.edu

Jim Brown is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Digital Studies Center. His research focuses on the ethical and rhetorical dimensions of new media technologies, and he teaches courses in new media, digital rhetoric and writing, videogame studies, and electronic literature. His work has been published in journals such as Philosophy & Rhetoric, Computers and CompositionCollege Composition and Communication, and Pedagogy and in various edited collections, including The Computer Culture Reader and Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities. His book, Ethical Programs: Hospitality and the Rhetorics of Software, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2015.

A color image of Anthony Wright.Anthony Wright

Associate Director
anthony.wright@rutgers.edu

Anthony Wright is Assistant Professor of Childhood Studies and Associate Director of the Digital Studies Center. He received his Ph.D. in medical anthropology in 2019 from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco, and his research explores how digital technologies shape young people’s attempts to transform conditions of illness and injustice. His courses include: Digital Research Methods, Digital Youth Cultures, and Youth Activism and Art. His work has been published in Journal of Urban Health, Medical Anthropology, Global Studies of Childhood, Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry and multiple edited volumes. His book, The Promise of Poison: Faith in Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Treatment, is under contract with NYU Press.

Doreen Wheeler

Program Coordinator
856-225-2597
wheelerd@camden.rutgers.edu

Doreen Wheeler is the Program Coordinator for Digital Studies as well as the Writing and Design Lab and provides support to the department including supervision of student workers, overseeing the budget, student advising, and coordination of all administrative duties of the department.  She is also the coordinator of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Donor Scholarships, which works with students, college administrators, and departments.  She joined Rutgers University in 2007 as Development Assistant in the Development Office where she worked with both Alumni and Students to navigate Faculty of Arts and Sciences Scholarships and donor relations with the students who were awarded scholarships.  She later worked for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office until she joined the Digital Studies Department and the Writing and Design Lab in Fall of 2018.

 


Affiliate Faculty

 

A picture of Professor Emmons with an orange cat.

Robert A. Emmons Jr.

Co-Founder, Affiliate Faculty

 

Robert A. Emmons Jr. is a documentary filmmaker and Associate Teaching Professor of Filmmaking in the Department of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts at Rutgers University-Camden. From 2016-2020 he was the co-founding Associate Director of the Digital Studies Center. His films include:Enthusiast: The 9th ArtSmalltown USAWolf at the DoorYARDSALE!Goodwill: The Flight of Emilio Carranza (2007), and De Luxe: The Tale of Blue Comet (2010). Goodwill has had the privilege to be screened as part of the Smithsonian exhibition “Our Journeys/Our Stories: Portraits of Latino Achievement” at the New Jersey Historical Society and won “Best Homegrown Documentary Feature” at the 2008 Garden State Film Festival. In 2009 he received Mexico’s Lindbergh-Carranza International Goodwill Award as a “Messenger of Peace” for his work on Goodwill. From February to August of 2010 Emmons created two short documentaries a week. The 52 short documentaries formed the weekly internet series MINICONCEPTDOCS and can be viewed on his YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Emmons teaches courses in film and media. His other documentaries include Weird as it is (2024), Game of Nim (2023), X9: CHØOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE (2022), Diagram for Delinquents (2014), De Luxe: The Tale of Blue Comet (2010) and Goodwill: The Flight of Emilio Carranza (2007). With partner Joe Tropea, he produced Fugazi’s Barber (2021) and Sickies Making Films (2019).

Black and white image of Professor Meredith BakMeredith A. Bak

Affiliate Faculty

 

Associate Professor, Childhood Studies.

Meredith A. Bak is the author of Playful Visions: Optical Toys and the Emergence of Children’s Media Culture (MIT Press, 2020). Her work in media archaeology using visual and material culture methods investigates historical and contemporary discourses of children media, technology, and creativity. Her current projects explore the history and theory of animate toys and discourses of environmental sustainability in children’s media and material cultures.

Color picture of Travis DuBoseTravis DuBose

Affiliate Faculty


Travis teaches classes focused on digital media and professional writing at Rutgers-Camden and serves as director of the Writing Program. His current research interest is the scholarship of teaching and learning, with recent work projects focusing on issues of civic engagement and digital capital. He also maintains creative interests in hypertext narratives and procedural generation. He was also founding director of the campus’s Writing and Design Lab.

A color image of Carla Giaudrone.Carla Giaudrone

Affiliate Faculty


Associate Professor of Spanish and Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies program. Her research explores the complexities of identity construction in 20th and 21st-century Latin American literature. She integrates digital humanities research into her courses by using open-source web publishing platforms like SCALAR and OMEKA. Author of La degeneración del Novecientos, her contributions extend to journals such as Revista Hispánica Moderna, Iberoamericana, and the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies.

A color image of Ashley Gimbal.Ashley Gimbal

Affiliate Faculty


A 2018 graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University, Dr. Gimbal’s research focuses on media framing audience effects, and how these elements alter the way news is created and shared. Dr. Gimbal teaches a range of courses focused on communication, journalism and media.

A color image of Professor Humes.Holly Blackford Humes

Affiliate Faculty


Holly Blackford Humes teaches and publishes literary criticism on American, children’s, adolescent, and YA literature, film, and media. Her books include Out of this World: Why Literature Matters to Girls (2004), Mockingbird Passing: Closeted Traditions and Sexual Curiosities in Harper Lee’s Novel (2011), The Myth of Persephone in Girls’ Fantasy Literature (2011), Alice to Algernon: The Evolution of Child Consciousness in the Novel (2018), and edited volumes on the centenaries of Anne of Green Gables (2009) and My Antonia (2018). She is currently finishing a book on animation and youth.

A color image of Nicole KarapanagiotisNicole Karapanagiotis

Affiliate Faculty


Nicole Karapanagiotis is Associate Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. Her research areas include South Asian religion, devotional Hinduisms, Indian philosophy, religion and digital media, and religion and marketing. She is the author of Branding Bhakti: Krishna Consciousness and the Makeover of a Movement (Indiana University Press, 2021). She has won the Helen Crovetto Award for Excellence in the Study of New Religious Movements with Ties to South Asia and the Rutgers University, Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence Award.

A color image of Professor KnievelTimothy M. Knievel

Affiliate Faculty


Tim is an assistant teaching professor who has worked in the Rutgers-Camden Department of Political Science since the fall of 2012. Since 2017, he has regularly offered a course called Introduction to Digital Politics, which explores the historical development of the internet and web, along with its impact on American Politics. In the spring of 2018, Tim served as the acting associate director of the Digital Studies Center at Rutgers-Camden.

A color image of Allison PageAllison Page

Affiliate Faculty


Allison Page is an Associate Professor of Media Studies in the Department of English and Communication. Her first monograph, “Media and the Affective Life of Slavery,” was published by the University of Minnesota Press in March 2022. She is currently working on her next monograph, “The Cultural Politics of Policing,” which historicizes the entanglement of race, policing, and media technologies in the United States.

A color image of Jillian SayreJillian Sayre

Affiliate Faculty


Jillian Sayre is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Communication and Director of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH). She teaches courses on contemporary theory, ecocriticism and environmental writing, Native American literature, and gothic and horror writing. She often teaches “Weird Books,” which explores experimental literature and games that challenge the traditional structure of both narrative and the book. Dr. Sayre has also published research on video games and the attention economy of networked life.

A color image of Claire StricklinClaire Stricklin

Affiliate Faculty


Claire Stricklin is an Assistant Teaching Professor of English & Communication at Rutgers University-Camden. Her teaching and her research are both centered on storytelling in hybrid environments. By examining the shifts in emergent behavior that appear when play moves from the analog to the digital world, her work seeks to articulate the complex relationships that form between people, formal systems, and networks of power.

A color image of Mark ZakiMark Zaki

Affiliate Faculty


Mark Zaki’s work ranges from traditional chamber music to interactive intermedia, and music for film. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Sheffield (UK) and has also been honored with awards and recognition from the International Society of Contemporary Music, Musica Nova (Prague), a Rutgers University Board of Trustees Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence, and a Mellon Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Zaki holds a Ph.D. degree from Princeton University and is currently Professor of Music at Rutgers where he has been a member of the faculty since 2008.


Researchers

 

Ronald Barr

Ronald is a third year at Rutgers, but he is a senior planning to graduate in Spring 2024. He is double majoring in Digital Studies and Applied and Computational Math with a minor in Physics. He is also the president of both the ACM club and the Math club. His interests are with aerospace and defense, and he desires to work in that industry one day.

Matthew Brodsky

Matthew is a junior at Rutgers-Camden with a major in Political Science with minors in Urban Studies and Philosophy. At DiSC he is apart of the Well Played Project. Additionally on campus he leads the RUC Votes Coalition and am a member of the SGA.

Isabella DeGaetano

Isabella is a 3rd year student at Rutgers University-Camden studying Pure Mathematics and Digital Studies. In her free time she likes to read, quilt, crochet and knit. Isabella hopes to become a high school math teacher when she graduates and carry on to pursue a masters degree in Mathematics. Isabella works on the R-Cade Project.

Shreya Desai

Shreya is a 2nd year Biology major, minoring in Chemistry and Economics. Some of her hobbies include playing sports, cooking, and reading. She is currently partnered with Rowan University to study the effects of lack of internet access among older adults who reside in assisted living facilities

Samantha Jacobs

Samantha is a second year Film and Digital Studies major, planning to graduate in May of 2025. She currently works at the Digital Studies Center as the social media coordinator, and hopes to work in the film industry post graduation.

Allison Monchinski

Allison is a sophomore at Rutgers University – Camden and is a Computer Science and Digital Studies dual major that works in the Digital Studies department and focuses mainly on the R-CADE project. Allison is an autistic transgender student who helps encourage others to live their best lives and be themselves. She’s a digital artist, chef, and has been a pianist for 16 years. Her goals include graduating and finding a remote job in her field.

Wayne Reynolds

Wayne Reynolds is a sophomore here at Rutgers. His main role at the Digital Studies Center is working with the Well-Played program. Outside of school, he is an aspiring writer, working on his dreams to become a show-runner.

Kemy Rodriguez

Kemy is a second-year student pursuing a major in English and minors in Digital Studies and Political Science. At DiSC he works in the Well Played Project and hopes to become an ESL teacher.

 

Victoria Scannella

Victoria “Tori” currently at Rutgers-Camden working towards her Masters degree in Public History! The era of history I study is the American Civil War, specifically Gettysburg and the latter half of the Civil War. She absolutely loves to read, her favorite genre is mystery and she loves Starbucks. Her favorite season is Fall and she is currently working with the Digital Studies Center as a historical researcher!

Tyler Walker

My name is Tyler Walker I’m currently a sophomore here at Rutgers Camden and I am a film major. I recently just joined the digital studies well-played team and outside of school I am an artist and a songwriter who is in pursuit of a career in music, screenwriting and Directing.


Fellows

Each year, DiSC invites applications for Digital Studies Fellowships. Fellows commit to teaching in the Digital Studies program while also doing research. Residency is not required, and fellows can propose online courses.

2019-2020 Fellows
2018-2019 Fellows
2017-2018 Fellows
2016-2017 Fellows
2015-2016 Fellows