People
Eric Gordon, PhD, Director, studies civic media, location-based media, and urban design. He is an associate professor in the department of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College where he focuses on the design and research of digital games and social software that foster local civic engagement. He is the co-author of a new book about location-based media called Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World (Blackwell Publishing, 2011) and the author of The Urban Spectator: American Concept Cities From Kodak to Google (Dartmouth, 2010). Download latest CV here. Visit him at placeofsocialmedia.com. Contact: eric_gordon [at] emerson.edu | Twitter
Stephen Walter, Coordinator of Technology and Community Development, recently graduated summa cum laude from the Department of Visual and Media Arts and Honors Program at Emerson College. He has worked for a variety of government and non-government organizations in making and making sense of media — most recently at the PBS science series NOVA. Additionally, on the nights and weekends and on most federal holidays, he is a struggling independent filmmaker. An instinctive skeptic struggling with fits of idealism, Stephen is interested in exploring the ways in which technologies and media can be used to engage humans with complex ideas and to nurture immersive, global thinking. Contact: stephen_walter [at] emerson.edu | chrono-synclastic-infundibulum.com
Stephen Hewitt, Media Production, is a graduate student at Emerson College working towards an M.F.A. in visual and media arts. He is a documentary filmmaker and photographer with an interest in crowd-sourced, interactive projects fueled by new media. His mission is to shape and create unique ways of experiencing the world through documentary. Stephen is an ’09 alumnus of The University of Rhode Island where he was one of the first graduates of the school’s Film Media program. Contact: shewitt22 [at] gmail.com
Jen Chia, Animator, Jen spent several years as a gallerina, art installer, video editor, artist assistant, and historical renovator in NYC before arriving at Emerson to pursue Animation. An idealist struggling with fits of skepticism, she is interested in the therapeutic dimension of digital immersion. jennifer_chia [at] emerson.edu
Brittney Oswald, Social Media Assistant, is an undergraduate student at Emerson College. She is working toward a degree in Communication Studies, with minors in Leadership & Management as well as Psychology. She finds joy in community service, and loves joining the efforts of people working toward a good cause. With a musician’s mind, she is drawn to placing creative emphasis on the world around us in order to find inspiration and make real change. And if none of her desired career paths work out, she’s pretty good at juggling. Contact: brittney_oswald [at] emerson.edu
EGL Alums
Nathaniel Hansen is an award-winning story-teller and producer. His directed film works include nationally broadcast commercials, short and feature length documentaries, short narrative films, episodic television, web based media, and ethnographic film. His strong visual style has attracted commercial clients like Johnson & Johnson, Covidien and Estee Lauder as well as small, no-budget non-profit organizations. His ethnographic footage has been retained by the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. His latest transmedia documentary The Elders has received praise both online and off for its matched aesthetic quality and provocative content. As an independent maker, Nathaniel’s recent work has been financially supported entirely through social media and crowdfunding. In 2010, his innovative efforts have raised over $200,000 for films he is directing or producing. Twitter: @nathanielhansen | www.nathanielhansen.com
Evan Leek is a Boston-based digital artist specializing in Gaming, Virtual Worlds and UI/UX Design. His work ranges from constructing three-dimensional interactive spaces, to creating augmented reality experiences. Exploring how we attribute significance to the places around us is a common theme throughout his work. Evan works in pen-and-ink, digital and web-based art, three-dimensional environments and Alternate Reality Games (ARGs). Most recently, Evan has been part of a team building iPhone and iPad applications aimed at aggregating social networking feeds to tell one’s life story. Through his work with the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT) at MIT, he examined the benefits of augmented reality experiences and distance collaboration in a variety of interactive environments. Working with Hub2, a Boston-based organization centered around utilizing interactive environments to foster more meaningful discussions on public spaces, he was able to see first hand the benefits of interactive gaming centered on socially conscious topics.
Steven Schirra, MA, Researcher, studies games and civic engagement. He recently worked as a researcher and content developer for the Participatory Chinatown project, which had its community debut in May 2010. He is currently a graduate student in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program. He is interested in new media literacies, game studies, and the role that new media and games play in community/civic engagement processes. Contact: steven_schirra [at] emerson.edu | Twitter
Jamie Spetner, Research Assistant, is a senior screenwriting major at Emerson College, currently participating in the Writer’s Guild of America East mentorship program. In the last year, he’s intensively studied how digital media is shaping culture, and written analyses of authority on Wikipedia, and the social science behind internet memes. He’s interested in the concept of virility, and how an idea can accidentally propagate itself to the masses. You can also check out some of his film and video production work athttp://vimeo.com/jamiespetner.
