Nick Sly is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Michigan State University who received a Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities in Fall 2023. He studies U.S. social and cultural history with an emphasis on education at the turn of the 19th century. His dissertation covers the controversies over textbooks and their adoption following the industry’s consolidation.
John Vsetecka is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Michigan State University. He is a historian of eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and twentieth-century Ukraine, and he is currently finishing a dissertation that focuses on the aftermath of the 1932-33 famine in Soviet Ukraine, now referred to as the Holodomor. During his time at MSU, John worked on several DH projects related to Ukraine and his research on famine.
Katherine I. Knowles is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English at Michigan State University. She is also pursuing her Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities. She is also pursuing the Certification in College Teaching to further explore digital pedagogy practices. She received her BA from Hanover College and her MA from the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute.
Dani Willcutt is a PhD Candidate in the History Department at Michigan State University where her current focus is U.S. Food and Labor History. Her dissertation work is titled, Serving it Up in the Capital City: Restaurants, Labor, and Restaurant Labor in Lansing, Michigan: 1963-2008, and focuses on the role of restaurants and restaurant labor in a Midwestern, rustbelt city.
Justin Wigard received the Graduate Certificate in Fall 2020. While at MSU, he has worked on DH projects related to comics, games, and literature. Two prominent projects include creating an Open Educational Resource and organizing an international Wikidata editing event, both which lower barriers of access to the MSU Comic Arts Collection. His primary Digital Humanities project is his dissertation, titled Level 101: A Video Game About Video Games, a playable video game that he wrote, coded, and programmed to teach players about video game history, design, and theory.