Emily Esten

digital projects for the public

Write me at estenemily [at] gmail.com

© 2020 / I built this with Jekyll & Hyde & help from @jeffreymoro

CV

About Me

I am a digital scholar, a public humanities practitioner, and public historian. I’m currently the Judaica Digital Humanities Project Coordinator for Penn Libraries and assist with Contingent Magazine.

Education

2018
Brown University
MA, Public Humanities •
2016
University of Massachusetts Amherst
BA, History; BA, Digital Humanities • magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa

University Employment

2019–Present
Judaica Digital Humanities Coordinator
Penn Libraries.
Mangaging the research and development of various projects associated with Judaica Digital Humanities at Penn Libraries, I deepen public and scholarly engagement with Penn's Judiaca materials..
2018–2019
Researcher and Collaborator, Mapping Violence
Brown University, Department of American Studies.
As a Researcher and Collaborator on the team, I coordinated with student developers and system administrators to maintain and operate the existing database, and provided strategic direction on the layout, interface, and content for project website..
2017
Teaching Assistant
Brown University, School of Professional Studies.
Introduced students to critical reading & literary theory in online English course Fantastic Places and Unhuman Humans..
2016-2017
Digital Projects Assistant
Brown University, Department of American Studies.
Explored museum history and catalog history by designing two digital projects using Tiki-Toki, Google Sheets, and Tableau Public visualizations..

Public Humanities Employment

2019–Present
Web Manager
Contingent Magazine.
Developed Contingent Magazine Theme for Wordpress and coordinated social media roll-out for launch of Contingent Magazine.
2018
Exhibition Researcher
New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center.
I volunteered at the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center on an upcoming exhibition exploring the evolution of wheelhouse technology and vessel design in the fishing industry from 1900-present, and the impact of these changes on fishermen, their families, and their communities..
2018
Humanities Scholar
New Bedford Ballet Foundation.
Served as Humanities Scholar on Mass Humanities-funded initiative with New Bedford Ballet to introduce fifth grade students to local history story of exploration, travel, and cultural exchange in 19th-century Massachusetts. Read coverage of the ballet performance and program at {{http://www.southcoasttoday.com/news/20180323/from-japan-to-southcoast-enduring-bond |SouthCoast Today}}.
2018
Digital Humanities Fellow
Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
I considered how technology could amplify narratives about the Kennedy family, the Senator’s work in the Senate, and current issues in the US government. In addition to planning out future experiences in VR, AR, and digital exhibit content, I develped two iPad applications and one digital projection/web display regarding the 2018 U.S. Senate elections..
2016
Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access
Evaluation Assistant.
Led evaluation case studies of institutional use of Smithsonian Learning Lab, a digital collections platform that allows users to discover Smithsonian Institution digital resources, and use them to create and share collections tailored to their needs and that of their target audiences..
2016–2018
Park Ambassador (Volunteer)
New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park.
Shared stories of New Bedford's community and whaling industry by providing the public with information about the park through formal and informal interpretation.
2016
Collections and Curation Management Intern
Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
Processed clothing and archival collections.
2015
Visitor Services Intern
Rhode Island Historical Society.
Engaged visitors with 18th-19th-century social history of Providence, RI, by developing curriculum packets and leading tours.

Writing

Web
“Who are the #GenizaScribes: 2019-2020 Community Survey Report”
 February 2020 • Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania
“Biographical Sketch of Helen Emerson”
 January 2020 • Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
“Scribes of the Cairo Geniza: Reviewing Sorting Phase Data”
 April 2019 • Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania
“Documenting the Use of the Smithsonian Learning Lab Among Smithsonian Museums, Research Centers, and Programmatic Offices”
 August 2018 • Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access

In Public

Conference Talks
“Digital Public Humanities for Historians”
 Nov. 2018 • American Studies Association • Atlanta, Georgia,
“#Resistance: Rogue Government Twitter and Digital Political Activism”
Oct. 2017 • Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts • Baltimore, Maryland,
“Courage, Perseverance, and Trust: The Manjiro Story”
May 2018 • UMass Graduate History Association • Amherst, Massachusetts,
“Charity as Coercion: The Ladies’ Branch of the New Bedford Port Society, 1833-1880”
April 2016 • University of Massachusetts Amherst • Amherst, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference
Roundtables & Panels
“Digital Projects in Jewish Studies”
 July 2020 • Association of Jewish Libraries • Virtual, Panel, AJL2020
“Scribes, Scholars, & Scripts: Creating a Digital Humanities Community Through Crowdsourcing”
 July 2020 • Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations • Ottawa, Ontario//Virtual, Panel, DH2020
“Interpreting Jewish History in Museums and Public History Settings”
March 2020 • National Council for Public History • Atlanta, Georgia//Virtual, Twitter Chat, NCPH 2020
“Cultivating Community with the Cairo Geniza”
 Nov. 2019 • Museum Computer Network • San Diego, California, Lightning Talk, MCN 2019
“Mapping Segregated Histories: Digital Research and Visualizations for the Public”
Nov. 2018 • American Studies Association • Atlanta, Georgia, Roundtable, ASA2018
“Cataloging History: Revisualizing the 1853 New York Crystal Palace”
 June 2018 • Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations • Mexico City, Mexico, Poster, DH2018
“Public Humanities: Mapping Violence”
May 2018 • Brown University, Department of American Studies • Providence, Rhode Island, Poster, Brown University American Studies Graduate Student Conference
“Mapping Violence”
January 2018 • Northeastern University School of Law • Boston, Massachusetts, Workshop Presentation, The Digital Red Record: The Promises and Perils of Digitally Documenting Historic Racial Violence
“Building a Feminist Future: On (Digital) Pedagogical Praxis”
 November 2017 • HASTAC • Orlando, Florida, Panel, HASTAC 2017
“Meeting in the Middle: Community Engagement in a Digital World”
 April 2017 • National Council for Public History • Indianapolis, Indiana, Working Group, NCPH 2017

Awards + Grants

MCN Scholar
For Museum Computer Network Annual Conference 2019
Humanities Intensive Learning and Teaching (HILT) Graduate Student Scholarship
For attendance at the HILT Institute at University of Pennsylvania 2017
New England Museums Association Professional Development Award
For attendance at the NEMA 2016 conference 2016
HASTAC Scholars Fellow
The HASTAC Scholars program is a collective of graduate and undergraduate students who are engaged with innovative projects and research at the intersection of digital media & learning, 21st century education, the digital humanities, and technology in the arts, humanities and sciences. 2016-2018

Workshops Led

Projects

Digital Projects
“Kislak COVID-19 Resources”
 • • Collaborator. 2019-Present.
A custom Penn Libraries Jekyll theme and rapid response site focused on documenting available resources from special collections at University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
“Sabato Morais Digital Repository”
 • • Project Manager/Developer. 2020-Present.
.
“Judaica Americana”
 • • Project Manager/Developer. 2019-Present.
The digital second edition of Judaica Americana makes searchable the 9,000 entries in the print edition. Taken as a whole, Singerman’s bibliography provides extensive and authoritative documentation of American Jewish communal activity and growth before 1901..
“Scribes of the Cairo Geniza”
 • • Project Manager. 2019-Present.
Scribes of the Cairo Geniza aims to sort and transcribe Cairo Geniza fragments using new technological approaches in partnership with a community of citizen humanists using the Zooniverse platform..
“Contingent Magazine”
 • • Site Designer. 2018-Present.
At Contingent Magazine, we believe that history is for everyone, that every kind of history is worthwhile, and that historians should be paid for their work..
“Mapping Violence”
 • • Researcher & Collaborator. 2017-2018.
Mapping Violence recovers lost and obscured cases of racial violence in Texas from 1900 to 1930, a period of now largely forgotten bloodshed. Making these histories public is a crucial step towards reckoning with the long legacies of violence..
“Visualizing the Crystal Palace”
 • • PI with Steven Lubar, Steffani Gomez, Brian Croxall, Patrick Rashleigh. 2017–18.
Geographic visualizations in Tableau, Google Maps, and D3 to discuss historical significance of museum catalogs, supplemented by two co-authored Medium posts with Steven Lubar. Data hosted on GitHub..
“Inside the Lost Museum”
 • • PI with Steven Lubar. 2016.
An interactive timeline as a digital companion to his book, Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present (July 2017 by Harvard University Press.).

Membership & Service

Membership
Member • Museum Computer Network. 2019-Present.
Member • Association for Computers and the Humanities. 2018-Present.
Member • Fembot Collective. 2017-Present.
Member • National Council for Public History. 2016-Present.
Service
Organizing Committee Member, KeystoneDH 2020 (postponed due to COVID-19) • Keystone DH. 2019–20.
Programming and Scholarship Committee Member, ACH 2019 • Association for Computers and the Humanities. 2018–19.
Board Member • Somerset Cultural Council. 2016-2018.

Skills & Training

Skills
Languages • Spanish (conversational).
Computer-Adjacent Languages • HTML, CSS, Jekyll + Liquid templating (reading), Python (reading), Swift (reading).
Social Media • Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, HootSuite, TweetDeck.
Jack of All Trades • Tableau Public, Garageband, iMovie, Adobe Audition, Audacity, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe llustrator, WordPress, Drupal, Wikia.
Trainings
Jekyll Working Group • University of Pennsylvania Libraries. 2019-Present.
Python for Humanists Working Group • University of Pennsylvania Libraries. 2019-Present.
Python for Humanists • HILT (Humanities Intensive Learning & Training). June 2018.
Introduction to Data Analysis in R for #MusetechRs • Museum Computer Network. November 2019.
Experimental Sound Design for Podcasting and Video • AS220 Media Lab. November 2018.
revision history for this page