SUMMER 2024 PROJECTS
Entering Tola’s Room: Archiving Puerto Rican Presence in Baltimore
Project Leader: Dr. María Célleri – Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies
Student Interns:
- Dharmini Carrillo – Major: Political Science, Minor: World Politics
- Ifechimelum Mba – Major: MCS, Minor: Psychology
- Amanda Negrete – Major: Computer Science, Minor: Music, Honors
Project Description
The interdisciplinary team of student researchers worked with Tola’s Room—a three-story immersive museum and cultural education center featuring art, home relics, and archives of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the city of Baltimore—to produce a tangible visual piece that the museum will use to increase their visibility in the community. While major hubs of the Puerto Rican diaspora, such as New York City and Miami, are well-known and researched, Baltimore’s growing Latinx population is increasingly Caribbean. Puerto Ricans are the 4th largest Latinx population in Baltimore City, and yet there seems to be little representation of their history and/or culture. Tola’s Room, founded by Christina Delgado, is Baltimore’s only permanent site of Puerto Rican history and contemporary diaspora in the city. The project team worked with Delgado and the rest of the Tola’s Room’s team to create a booklet of the museum, in both physical and digital versions, using the archival material already curated by Tola’s Room in the museum-house. The project team also compiled their own research of Puerto Rican history in the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia (DMV) area for Tola’s Room use.
View the Tola’s Room website
View the Virtual Tour of Tola’s Room created by the project team (at bottom of the page)
FindingBlackGirlhood: A Digital Archive
Project Leader: Courtney Cook – Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies
Student Interns:
- Areeba Ahmad – Major: Psychology, Minor: Biology
- Bolu Ajose – Major: Social Work, Minor: Psychology
- Scherrie Newton – Major: Africana Studies & MCS
Project Description
Film is an abundant site to exhume rich archival material on underrepresented demographics. Cinematic representations of Black girlhood give distinctive insight into Black girls lived experiences. Black girls in film are visualized representatives who, by simply existing on screen, create spaces for an innovative and expansive approach to archival research. The interdisciplinary team of student researchers collaborated on this research and developed a small-scale preliminary website designed like an academic film streaming site, much like Kanopy. Entitled FindingBlackGirhood: A Digital Archive, the project team created a beta version of the site that will contribute to creating an innovative archive of freedom. The website includes an Introduction that considers the intersections of Black girlhood and film, film descriptions, and analytical essays on each film.
View the FindingBlackGirlhood website created by the project team.
The History and Impact of the UMBC Center for Women in Technology (CWIT)
Project Leader: Kristen Anchor – Media & Communication Studies
Student Interns:
- Bella Dongarra – Major: Information Systems
- Hiya Patel – Major: Financial Economics & Political Science
- Audrey Spurr – Major: Pre-Nursing
Project Description
The UMBC Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) is dedicated to enabling success for all women and other underrepresented groups in technology fields. CWIT supports UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) students with a nurturing and challenging community, transformative leadership experiences, and professional development opportunities. The interdisciplinary team of student researchers created a set of five videos that describes CWIT’s history and impact in the context of gender representation in technical fields over the last 25 years. The product is based on video, audio, and photographic resources from CWIT that describe its history and impact on students and on the tech workforce, along with products from the project team’s research on gender issues in tech. The team drew from CWIT archives, which include videos, photographs, and Center records. This project is an outgrowth of CWIT’s 25th birthday in Fall 2023, and is part of the celebration of that milestone.
Videos created by the project team:
Academic Excellence
Inclusive Excellence
Personal Excellence
Professional Excellence
The Center for Women in Technology
Podcasting Baltimore’s LGBTQ+ History
Project Leader: Dr. Kate Drabinski – Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies
Student Interns:
- Cayla Amouzou – Major: Statistics & English
- Marlon Brown – Major: Acting, Minor: Anthropology
- Sage Zoz – Major: Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies
Project Description
The interdisciplinary team of student researchers used the oral histories of UMBC’s LGBTQ+ oral history project, interviews, and archival resources to produce original research about Baltimore’s LGBTQ+ history. Based on this research, and building on previous work done by CoLab researchers in 2023, the team produced a podcast about these histories for Baltimore Heritage to is featured on their website. The project will help Baltimore Heritage expand their archive of knowledge about these often overlooked histories.
Listen on Spotify to the Podcast created by the project team:
By the Marble: Podcasting Baltimore’s Queer History
Picturing Mobility: Photographs of Black Tourism and Leisure during the Jim Crow Era
Project Leaders:
- Dr. Liz Patton – Media & Communication Studies
- Dr. Beth Saunders – Special Collections and AOK Gallery
Student Interns:
- Carrington Cline – Majors: MCS and GWST, Honor’s College
- Em Schumacher – Major: GES
- Corey Turner – Major: Computer Science
Project Description
The interdisciplinary team of student researchers researched and planned a 2025 photography exhibition for UMBC’s Albin O. Kuhn (AOK) Library Gallery on the subject of Black mobility and leisure during Jim Crow. They created the exhibition website featuring locations relevant to Black mobility and leisure in the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia (DMV) area. The website offers a preview for the exhibition and features original essays and image descriptions authored by the students.
The project team began by exploring archival sources provided by their Project Leaders, materials housed in AOK Library and Morgan State University Special Collections, as well as the Burns Archive based in New York City. Their webpage highlights local historical leisure spaces that will be featured in the exhibition. The project team visited the Burns Archive, a private photography collection in New York City, to conduct original research on vintage snapshots related to African American leisure, helping to identify the people, locations, and key themes embedded in these images. The students’ research contributes to the early development of the exhibition and will be featured on the exhibition website.
View the webpage created by the project team: Picturing Mobility
The History of The Choice Program at UMBC, A Mentoring and Diversion Program
Project Leader: Dr. Kelly Quinn – The Shriver Center
Student Interns :
- Grace Briglia – Major: MCS
- Tyler Brown – Major: Social Work, Minor: Africana Studies
- Nusrat Tusi – Major: Political Science, Minor: Law & Justice
Project Description
The interdisciplinary team of student researchers documented the history of The Choice Program at UMBC, distilling key moments to be used in media campaigns for the organization.
Since 1988, The Choice Program, housed in The Shriver Center, has worked with young people and their families throughout central Maryland, most of whom are involved with the Department of Juvenile Services. The CoLab project team created a timeline of Choice and studied the historical context of such topics as public responses to youth involvement with crime: punishment, diversion, and abolition. Based on this research, the team used a story-based strategy for social change, one that dispels myths, promotes reform, and amplifies mentoring as an alternative to detention. The timeline served as the basis for a digital story, a one page infographic, and a social media slide show. The organization will use these materials on their website for internal and external communication.
The Choice Program Timeline Infographic created by the project team: https://umbc.box.com/s/edu8yv6lp7twjdu9vqtr58xewdkpmcnj
Ghosts in the Stacks: Exploring Spiritualism in the UMBC Special Collections Library
Project Leader: Dr. Lindsay DiCuirci – English
Student Interns:
Bella Berry Major: MCS, Minor: Spanish
Lillian Huynh Major: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Minor: Writing
Taylor Phelps Major: American Studies & Sociology
Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD)
Image by Shannon Taggart
Project Description
Fascination with spirit contact has always been an integral part of the human experience. Mediums and ministers, seers and scientists have long tried to capture evidence of the unexplainable in print media, photography, and audio recording. In this CoLab, the interdisciplinary team of student researchers worked with UMBC Special Collections and their recently acquired Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation Collection to create a digital exhibition featuring some of their thousands of rare items. Ranging in date from the 16th century to the present, this collection is a rich, multimedia archive of parapsychological history covering subjects like mediumship, hauntings, out-of-body experiences, and precognition. The project team researched individual collection items, developed curatorial guidelines for organizing the exhibition, and built an informative and interactive website for use by experts and curiosity seekers alike. The exhibition is permanently hosted on the UMBC Special Collections website, and team members shared their work in a public Library Gallery forum in Fall 2024.
View the website created by the project team