Topics include Gun ads, homelessness, anthropology of Newark.
Enlarge
June 2019 – Students in Drew University’s Digital Humanities Summer Institute shared the fruits of their research projects on the final day of this year’s session.
The four-week institute is intensive and immersive, with students working closely with faculty mentors and using digital tools to record, interpret and visualize data in fields such as history, media studies, computer science, public health, philosophy and sociology. The researchers receive a stipend so they can work full-time on their projects. The program is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Some of the latest projects began last summer and all are continuing. Here’s a closer look.
How Firearms and Ammunition Are Advertised
Description: Examine how firearms and ammunition are advertised in social media
Findings: Gun enthusiasts who post videos on YouTube have significantly more followers than manufacturers, so manufacturers follow them and sponsor them.
Team: Colleen Dabrowski, James Kalin and Assistant Professor Lisa Jordan
Neighbors in Need
Description: Code and analyze data to determine how to more quickly place the chronically homeless in housing
Findings: Landlords are wary of housing vouchers and, as a result, are unfamiliar with how they work.
Team: Sophia George, Aleko Graham and Associate Professor Susan Rakosi Rosenbloom
Reanimating Experimental Psychology
Description: Use animation to recreate interactive psychological tests from the early 20th century
Findings: Fear of job displacement spurred labor unions to resist psychological tests that aimed to determine work aptitude.
Team: Kiyah Colson, Henry Giddings, Katlego Mhlongo, Kirstin Waldmann, Associate Professor Lee Arnold and Assistant Professor Jeremy Blatter
Enlarge
Urban Anthropology of Newark
Description: Map the key anthropological factors of Newark
Findings: The tight-knit cultures of the North Ward and Ironbound neighborhoods of Newark make their residents less likely to interact with the rest of the city or city leaders.
Team: Andrew Katapodis, Genesis Guedes, Gionna Del Purgatorio, Katelynn Rodriguez and Associate Professor Allan Dawson
Human Interpretation in Computer Programming
Description: Examine programming practice from a historical and philosophical perspective, using concepts and methods from Kantian idealism to hermeneutics
Findings: Amid the increasing complexity of software development, programming languages must conform to human intuition when used to develop algorithms. As David Nesterov-Rappoport put it: “You must make it think like you do. It itself doesn’t need that. But for you to make use of it, it must have that.”
Team: Jimmy Fortier, David Nesterov-Rappoport and Assistant Professor Ziyuan Meng
Enlarge
Topic Modeling of Science Textbooks
Description: Analyze the terms used in physics, chemistry and biology textbooks to determine topical relationships
Findings: While each scientific discipline is distinctive, there are several overlapping topics and terms—including energy and electron—that are considered significant across all three disciplines. This analysis and resulting data visualization can help design an integrative and interdisciplinary science curriculum.
Team: Peiyu Guo, Kayla Rockhill and Associate Professor Minjoon Kouh
Growth in Rock Music Culture
Description: Map prominent bands of 1967-71 by genre, where they played and how many tickets they sold, including those that performed at Drew
Findings: Bands gravitated toward the East and West coasts of the U.S., where there’s a concentration of colleges and universities.
Team: Erin Feith, Kevin Lagerquist, Adam Sandonato and Associate Professor James Carter
Enlarge
Archiving The Drew Acorn
Description: Digitize past print issues and photos of The Drew Acorn so that the campus community can access Drew’s history online
Findings: The integration of women into the student body in the 1940s followed forerunners like Oberlin but preceded Columbia by decades.
Team: Andrew Dugan, Kassel Franco Garibay, Elizabeth Schafer and Professor Wendy Kolmar
