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The Nebraska Stories of Humanity Team

Research

Dr. Beth S. Dotan, project manager and developer of the Nebraska Stories of Humanity, joined the UNL Harris Center for Judaic Studies as Research Assistant Professor in the Spring of 2023. Her research focuses on Digital Holocaust Memory and Education, cultivating the stories of Holocaust survivors who settled in Nebraska and World War II liberators of Nazi camps who hailed from the state. Beth is a speaker for the Humanities Nebraska Speakers Bureau. She served as the founding Executive Director of the Institute for Holocaust Education (IHE) in Omaha for 13 years, working extensively with Holocaust survivor families and creating a full-fledged Holocaust educational program throughout Nebraska. Beth also worked as the Director of the International Department at the Ghetto Fighters’ House Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum in the Western Galilee, Israel. Returning to Nebraska after many years in Israel, she earned her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Dr. Ari Kohen is Professor of Political Science, Schlesinger Professor of Social Justice and Director of the Norman and Bernice Harris Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Kohen serves as Co-PI on the NE Stories of Humanity project. He is the co-editor of a book series with the University of Nebraska Press—Contemporary Holocaust Studies—that focuses on contemporary research and teaching on the Holocaust in higher education. Kohen’s additional books, Untangling Heroism: Classical Philosophy and the Concept of the Hero (2014) and In Defense of Human Rights: A Non-Religious Grounding in a Pluralistic World (2007) were published by Routledge. Recent articles have appeared in Human Rights Review, Journal of Human Rights, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Discourse & Society, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, Social Justice Research, Politics, and Polis.

Dr. Carrie C. Heitman is Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Acting Co-Director of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the UNL. She also serves as a project consultant for NE Stories of Humanity. Dr. Heitman was an American Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Virginia (2011). Since 2004, Heitman has helped oversee the building of the Chaco Research Archive, and her research continues to explore how new technologies can support scholarly communication and facilitate responsible digital access to cultural heritage information. Other collaborative projects include the Salmon Pueblo Archaeological Research Collection, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and The Greater Chaco Landscape: Ancestors, Scholarship, and Advocacy, and Being Present with the Past, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She has numerous publications.

Laura Weakly, metadata encoding specialist, offers expert insights on the TEI P5 encoding for Nebraska Stories of Humanity, and is responsible for the project's metadata schemas. She also supervises student employees and interns in the CDRH working on the site. She has a B. A. in Journalism and History, and an M.A in Journalism & Mass Communication. At the CDRH she is responsible for development of metadata schema and training of faculty and graduate students in text encoding. She has worked NEH-funded projects such as the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online, the Omaha Ponca Digital Dictionary, and O Say Can You See: Early Washington D.C. Family and Law.

Erin Chambers, front end developer at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at UNL, joined the CDRH in early 2023 and has contributed to digital humanities projects like the Open ONI Online Newspapers Initiative and the Walt Whitman Archive, including several forthcoming projects.. Erin received a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2010, a Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities from UNL in 2017, and is currently working toward an M.A. in English while working full-time at UNL.

Karin Dalziel is Assistant Director of Digital Strategies in the UNL Libraries and developer team leader in the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. She received a B.F.A. in Art from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2006 and an M.A. in Library Science from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 2010. Dalziel has created interface designs and search features for many digital humanities research sites, including sites such as NEH-funded projects Civil War Washington and the William F. Cody Archive. She served as the lead designer for the new Nebraska Stories of Humanity site and will assist with developing the user experience for the project as new materials are added.

Will Dewey is a developer at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities since 2021. He has also worked on Petitioning for Freedom and modernizing the Walt Whitman Archive. He received a BA in religious studies and political science from Emory University in 2008, a Master of Theological Studies (focusing on Buddhism) from Harvard Divinity School in 2010, and a PhD in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2017, as well as a certificate in software engineering from Flatiron School in 2020. His prior experience with digital projects includes creating web and gallery content for the Rubin Museum of Art and improving the metadata of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. He continues to publish articles in the field of Tibetan Buddhist Studies.

Greg Tunink is a developer in the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH) and community manager for the Open Online Newspaper Initiative (Open ONI). He has helped create and support open source research tools such as Annotonia and sites including The Willa Cather Archive, Nebraska Newspapers, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Nebraska Authors, and the Salmon Pueblo Archeological Research Collection. He has overseen numerous server migrations and streamlined server software deployment, configuration, and administration. Greg received his Bachelor's in Computer Science with minors in Mathematics and Business from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in 2009.

Artwork

Shiri Phillips is a visual artist based in Omaha, Nebraska. Shiri relocated to Israel at an early age and returned to the United States to finally settle in Omaha. Both personally and as an artist, she is bound to her Israeli and American dual citizenship and uses this as a part of her expression of identity. For this project Phillips’ chose to create work that reflected the stories of these survivors and the lives they lived.

Interns

  • Jasmine Amaya
  • Katrina Bergantzel
  • Natalie Beattie
  • Karmen Browitt
  • Gabriel Cahill
  • Lorenzo Catalano
  • Ethan Clinchard
  • Tristan Curd
  • Sarah Ellison
  • Carmela Escalante
  • Aila Ganić
  • Harper Gordman
  • Abigail L. Hanson
  • Emma Klein
  • Elsie McCabe
  • Amy Peterson
  • Lindsay Roberts
  • Jo Sayer
  • Gracyn Scott
  • Rachel Summers
  • Ethan Tylski

    • Community Volunteers

  • Alex Grossman
  • Mary Sue Grossman
  • Gary Nachmann
  • Donna Walter
  • Sibby Wolfson

    • Other Contributors to the Project

    Sarita B. Garcia contributed to the project as a junior developer at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. She first joined the CDRH as a graduate research assistant in history in 2017. Sarita worked on multiple projects, including Cartas a la Familia, The Nebraska-Latino Heritage Collection, and the African Poetry Digital Portal. Sarita received her B.A. in 2017 from Texas A&M University-Kingsville, and her M.A. in History in 2019 from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She also earned a graduate certificate in digital humanities in 2019.

    Andrew Pederson contributed to the project as a project specialist at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. Andy coordinated Center-wide project and information management, supported Center communication, and assisted with quality assurance on digital projects. Andy contributed to digital projects such as Nebraska Newspapers and Nebraskaland Magazine Digital Archive. In addition to his work on these projects, Andy maintained the Center’s web presence publicly on its Drupal site and internally through SharePoint. Andrew has a Bachelor's Degree in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

    Stakeholders

    In developing this resource, we understood through our generous funders that alliance with community organizations would enhance our content and exposure. Since the nature of our collection included gathering materials from archival material already preserved in numerous places, there was an incentive to collaborate beyond simply displaying borrowed materials. The Nebraska Stories of Humanity Stakeholder members have provided helpful critique and recommendations in developing the resource and will promote the site within their extensive memberships.

    The Nebraska Stories of Humanity Stakeholder Committee Partnerships include:

    At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln:

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