People

Bridging Departments and Disciplines in a Digital Age

Co-Directors

 
Pamella Lach
Digital Humanities Librarian and DH Center Director

Pamella Lach

Pamella R. Lach is a national leader in using digital technologies to create a new future for the academic humanities. She is the co-creator with the National Humanities Center of the acclaimed series of podcast institutes that have helped more than 600 graduate students, faculty, library folks, alt-ac workers, and independent scholars move towards a more collaborative, care-centered, networked approach to the humanities. Dr. Lach’s work is grounded in an ethics of care and community building, critical and ethical applications of technology in research and teaching, and process-oriented experimentation. She is part of the editorial team of dh+lib, on the Editorial Board of the open access journal In The Library With The Lead Pipe, and the co-Vice President/co-President Elect of the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH), the major digital humanities professional society in the United States. 
Sureshi M. Jayawardene
Africana Studies

Sureshi M. Jayawardene

Sureshi M. Jayawardene is associate professor of Africana Studies. She received her Ph.D. in African American Studies from Northwestern University and now is an Africana social scientist specializing in the western Indian Ocean African diaspora and an Associate Professor of Africana studies at SDSU. Her research and teaching interests include Africana geographies and epistemologies, diaspora, memory, expressive cultures, spirituality, Africana families and kinship formations, Black digital humanities, and research methods. She is currently working on a book combining ethnography, interviews, archival research, and content analyses with theories of diaspora, Pan-Africanism, Black Geographies, and Africana aesthetics to culturally situate her investigation into conceptions of selfhood and community among people of African descent in Sri Lanka. Her publications about South Asian Africana communities have appeared in the Journal of Black Studies and the Journal of African American Studies. Jayawardene is also a co-founder and currently co-directs the Afrometrics Research Institute.

Founders

 
Jessica Pressman
English and Comparative Literature

Jessica Pressman

Dr. Jessica Pressman is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University. She is the author of Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age (Columbia UP, 2020) and Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media (Oxford UP, 2014), co-author, with Mark C. Marino and Jeremy Douglass, of Reading Project: A Collaborative Analysis of William Poundstone’s Project for Tachistocope {Bottomless Pit} (Iowa UP, 2015), and co-editor, with N. Katherine Hayles, of Comparative Textual Media: Transforming the Humanities in a Postprint Era (Minnesota UP, 2013). She is a recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Her full CV can be found at www.jessicapressman.com.
Joanna Brooks
English and Comparative Literature

Joanna Brooks

Dr. Joanna Brooks is the Associate Vice President of Faculty Advancement and Student Success and a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University. She is a national voice on religion and American life and the author or editor of six books on race, gender, colonialism, and religion in American literature and culture. Her recent books include The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of An American Faith (Simon & Schuster, 2012), winner of the 2012 award in memoir from the Association of Mormon Letters, Transatlantic Feminisms in the Age of Revolutions (Oxford UP, 2012), and Why We Left: Untold Songs and Stories of America’s First Immigrants (University of Minnesota, 2013). Her scholarship has been supported and honored with awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Association, and the Modern Language Association. She has appeared as a commentator or guest on NPR, MSNBC, and the Daily Show, and her writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Tablet, Salon, and ReligionDispatches.org. See more at joannabrooks.org.

Advisory Board

Affiliate Faculty

Noah Arceneaux, Journalism and Media Studies

Dani Bedau, Theatre, Television and Film; Head of Youth Theatre

David Cline, History; SDSU Center for Public and Oral History Director, Surf/Skate Studies Collaborative

Anna Culberston, Library; Special Collections & University Archives Director

Lashon Daley, English and Comparative Literature; National Center for the Study of Children's Literature (NCSCL) Director

Dustin W. Edwards, Rhetoric and Writing Studies; SDSU Writing Center Director

Nathan Ellstrand, History; postdoctoral DPAA Research Partner Fellow

Tyler Grand-Pre, English and Comparative Literature

Blas Falconer, English and Comparative Literature; Poetry International Online Editor-in-Chief

James Frazee, IT Division; Information Technology Vice President and Chief Information Officer

Eduardo González, Communication; Border Studies Cluster

Karen Han, Journalism and Media Studies

Jennifer Imazeki, Economics; Faculty and Staff Diversity Associate Vice President, Center for Inclusive Excellence Director

Amira Jarmakani, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies & Center for Isalmic and Arabic Studies 

Erika Robb Larkins, Anthropology; The Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies Director, Surf/Skate Studies Collaborative, Urban Studies

Diana Leong, English and Comparative Literature; Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs, Sustainability Program

Keavy Mcfadden, Geography 

Vijayanka Nair, Anthropology

Lorenzo Nerricio, Classics and Humanities & Philosophy; Artificial Intelligence and Human Responsibility

Chuyun Oh, Music and Dance

Shelley Orr, Theatre, Television and Film; MA in Theatre Arts Director 

Beth Pollard, History (Department Chair); SDSU Center for Comics Studies Co-Director

Daniel L. Reinholz, Mathematics and Statistics; Equity in Eduation Professor, Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education

Kylie Sago, European Studies; SDSU Universal Design for Learning Faculty Ambassador

Linda Salem, Library; Collection Development Assistant Head

Amy Schmitz Weiss, Journalism and Media Studies

André Skupin, Geography; Center for Information Convergence and Strategy (CICS) Founder & Co-Director

Ricardo Vasconcelos, Spanish and Portoguese (Department Chair); Translation Studies Program Director, Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies

Jess Whatcott, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; LGBTQ+ Studies, Center for Comics Studies

Samya Brata Roy, Founder ELitIndia, Affiliate University of Regensburg, Gov. & Exec. body member DHARTI, Visiting Research Fellow, University of London (2024-2025)

DH Center and DH@SDSU Staff

 
Patrick Flanigan
DH Center Programs & Operations Specialist

Patrick Flanigan

Patrick Flanigan is the Digital Humanities Center Programs & Operations Specialist. He supports the DH Initiative’s research, scholarly and creative activities in the Digital Humanities Center. This involves leading the production of digital literacy and tool-based (asynchronous) tutorials and other online learning materials, including creating new tutorials and overseeing student assistants’ production of peer-to-peer tool tutorials; tutorial topics might focus on (but are not limited to): Adobe Creative Cloud, lightweight data visualization platforms,  podcasting, digital storytelling and electronic-literature platforms, mobile applications, and text analysis tools. Patrick is a resource for users interested in podcasting and video as he specializes in recording, editing, and production. He is a supporter of Arsenal Football Club. He also supervises the DH Center's student workers.

A photo of Vide Sale-Reed standing in front of the Love Library dome at SDSU
Digital Humanities Initiative Program Assistant

Vide Sale-Reed

Vide Sale-Reed is a student in the SDSU creative writing MFA program. He utilizes digital media to create works of interactive fiction and other electronic literature. He helps support the DH Center and DH Initiative at SDSU by writing DH newsletters and creating content for social media. 

View past DH people

A young woman wearing headphones observes a presentation displayed on a large screen in a brightly lit room. The screen shows a blue slide titled “The Effects of Stories Shared By and About Native and Japanese Americans,” with images of the Japanese flag, the American flag, and a Native American in traditional headdress. Other people are engaged at adjacent screens and workstations in the background.

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