Organizers + Presenters

Lead instructor and tech team lead: Pam Lach (she/her) is the Digital Humanities Librarian at San Diego State University. She is Director of the Library’s Digital Humanities Center and Co-Director of SDSU’s Digital Humanities Initiative. Pam’s work explores how new and emerging technologies transform humanistic scholarship and pedagogy. Her areas of interest include data visualization, information retrieval, user experience design, digital pedagogy, surveillance, critical librarianship, and anti-racist digital humanities. She has a PhD in U.S. Cultural History with an emphasis on gender and film history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a MS in Information Science from UNC’s School of Information and Library Science.

Recording/sound engineer & tech support: Patrick Flanigan (he/him) is the Digital Humanities Center Programs and Operations Specialist at the San Diego State University Library. Patrick oversees daily operations of the DH Center and provides instructional and programmatic support for the wide range of activities, trainings, and tutorials the DHC and broader DH Initiative offer. Patrick is an alumnus of SDSU and has spent the last 30 years combining his passion for music with his enjoyment of working in libraries. As a student working at the SDSU Library he was in many bands and frequently recorded his musical efforts both in professional and home studios. After graduating from SDSU he worked as a cataloger at National University by day and pursued his music career by night, eventually leaving the library world to work in the booming internet industry. Years later with the emergence of digital resources and technology, he received a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Missouri with a focus on digital resources. He continues to record music today for his project Punk Rock Drum Machine, using an 8 track digital recorder with analog controls and mastering the WAV files using Audacity. He supports Arsenal Football Club.

Cohort tech team support: Cassie Tanks (she/her) is a PhD student in the Northeastern University History Department. She has an MS in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During her time at UNC she was a Carolina Academic Library Association fellow, where she lead the UNC Story Archive -- a program that collects and preserves audio recordings of UNC students and alumni from historically underrepresented and silenced communities. Her work culminated in the launch of Queerolina, part of The Story of Us, an initiative to document and preserve the history of UNC members who identify as LGBTQiA+. She is also a research assistant for the digital humanities project Apartheid Heritage(s) at Northeastern University, and previously worked in the Digital Humanities Center at San Diego State University. Her interests focus on participatory metadata, intersectionality in the archives, transnational Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 20th century, and critical digital humanities. Cassie’s first job doing community outreach and dance instruction at a recreation center has profoundly impacted her to this day.

Cohort tech team support: Marisol Fila (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Michigan. Her dissertation explores how Black female and male writers, artists and intellectuals in the twenty-first century Black presses of Buenos Aires, Argentina, São Paulo, Brazil, and Lisbon, Portugal use digital and print media to navigate distinct articulations between diasporic and national Black identities. Marisol is also interested in Critical Pedagogy and Public Digital Humanities and in the ways in which technology and digital media can serve as a tool to share her research and work to a wider audience, but also to develop digital projects in partnership with Afro-descendant organizations across Portuguese and Spanish speaking countries. Marisol is the recipient of a University of Michigan 2022 Anti-Racism Research Grant and a current Imagining America PAGE Co-Director.

Cohort tech team support: Alejandro David Tamez ("David") (he/him) is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at the University of Kansas. His dissertation develops a normative theory for judicial decision-making that goes beyond mere interpretation. David is also interested in Public Digital Humanities and public philosophy, with the aim of exploring ways philosophy permeates through everyday political decision-making, especially at the local level. To this end, David has developed a podcast in Lawrence Talks that mixes philosophical and theoretical interviews with KU researchers, as well as a discussion of values in local politics with Lawrence leaders. In addition to LT, David has also helped produce a limited series for the Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities (IDRH, Digitalks), and an ongoing podcast for the Center for Latin and Caribbean Studies (CLACS, Charla de Merienda) – both at KU. For his work, David has received a Berry Grant for Public Philosophy from the APA and a CSL Award for Excellence in Service Learning + Community Engagement from the University of Kansas.