Hello All,

I am currently enrolled as a first year Master’s student in History at George Mason alongside the Digital Humanities Certificate. This is my second masters degree, the first being Educational Multimedia, and my undergraduate degree is also in History. My experience with digital humanities has been sporadic at best, as my degree in Education covered how to create learning material regardless of discipline. As an undergrad, it was limited to PowerPoint presentations.

I currently work as the Digital Humanities Graduate Research Assistant at Fenwick Library at George Mason’s Fairfax Campus, and my duties are to help the research librarians within the humanities research tools that they feel might be of use. The one tool that they have the most inclination towards using is Omeka. As such, I created an exhibit for them that I used to both learn the system, and to give tutorials to fellow graduate students. The introductory course for the Digital Humanities certificate provided a wide range of projects that have been created within DH, and a few of the tools that are available for future use.

My experience in history so far has been in regards to research and writing essays and theses, and I have little experience in creating projects for the public. The only project I have done in public history was the exhibit of Gunston Hall that I completed using Omeka. Given my background in History, I am excited to learn more about the process of creating historical projects for the public. I have experience writing history and visiting libraries and museums, but I am curious about the process of creating the exhibits that I have visited.

Michael Roth