Active Students (as of April 2024)*
Graduate students: 54
*All active students with declared CAH programs are included in the enrollment counts.
The Texts and Technology (T&T) doctoral program, an interdisciplinary program drawing on the expertise of faculty across the college, continued its tradition of research excellence, including recognition both on and off campus and getting involved in the community in various ways.
Interdisciplinary Research
T&T students do a wide variety of interdisciplinary digital humanities research. The breadth is best showcased by a selection of the dissertations completed this year. Kendra Gilbertson explored how used social media to get involved in the Movement for Black Lives during the 2020 season. Daniel Cox used the critical code studies method to investigate the interactive storytelling software, Twine. Jack Murray examined the popular game Magic: The Gathering and its digital adaptations. Abigail Moreshead conducted archival research on women wood engravers in the early to mid-20th century. Emily Hensley studied how different approaches to teaching rhetoric and composition are spread. Francine Sutton studied how older adults use mobile devices to schedule health appointments. T&T Students, faculty, and alums also published on topics like how medieval history functions in contemporary Russian society (Evan Wallace) and Students presented at international conferences like the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the Special Interest Group on Design of Communication of the Association for Computing Machinery (SIGDOC), and the Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC). Faculty member Emily Johnson was awarded a 3-year collaborative grant from the U.S. Department of Education for the project Exploring Language Learning with Educational Computer and V.R. Games.
Award-Winning Students and Alumni
In addition to their innovative interdisciplinary research, our students and alumni were recognized within and outside UCF this year. Two students, PS Berge and Keidra Daniels Navaroli, received Order of Pegasus, which is UCF’s highest student honor. Our students also received external awards for their research, with Navaroli recognized with a competitive Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award at the SECAC 2023 conference for her paper, Waters of the Abyss: The Intangible Landscapes of Fabiola Jean-Louis and alum Jessica Campbell ’20 PhD recognized with the Computers & Composition Ellen Nold Award for her co-authored paper, Metaphors, Mental Models, and Multiplicity: Understanding Student Perception of Digital Literacy.
T&T Off Campus
Throughout the year, T&T students, faculty, and alums engaged in various work beyond UCF. T&T was one of the hosts of SIGDOC, a major international technical communication conference in downtown Orlando in October 2023. Christopher C. Odom ’23 PhD helped organize the Our Vision Caribbean and Latino Film Festival. Student Jim Stoddard’s work with the Veterans Legacy Program, which creates and shares biographies of military veterans for the community and K-12 education, was highlighted on the local news. Keidra Daniels Navaroli curated two art exhibits featuring multimedia artist Chakaia Booker and contemporary textile art. Additionally, T&T faculty members Anastasia Salter, Mel Stanfill, John Murray and Emily Johnson presented A.I. Across Creative Frontiers at UCF Celebrates the Arts.
— Anastasia Salter, Director of Graduate Programs and Texts and Technology
