The Heritage Jam
THE JAM TEAM
The 2022 Team
Dr Colleen Morgan
Dr Colleen Morgan is the Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. She is the Director of the Digital Archaeology and Heritage Lab, the MSc in Digital Archaeology and the MSc in Digital Heritage.
Despoina Sampatakou
Despoina is a PhD student in Digital Archaeology at the University of York working under the supervision of Dr Colleen Morgan and Dr Michele Alexander. Her research focuses on assessing the impact of different media of archaeological storytelling on the wider public. Her case study is tomb V at the Grave Circle A, in Mycenae, Greece, a Bronze Age cemetery with lots of stories to tell.
Her research interests include the dead and their untold stories, archaeogaming, immersion and interaction, VR and AR, architecture, landscapes, and all shiny stuff.
Dr Aris Politopoulos
Dr Aris Politopoulos is a lecturer for the archaeology of the Near East at Leiden University. He was spending too much time playing video games, so he decided to start studying them archaeologically. He has done research and published extensively on archaeology, outreach, and video games!
Saad Maqbool
Saad is a PhD Student at the TFTi Department of the University of York, and his current research is looking at the ways in which people can create interactive stories from an individual’s physical experience of a historical site. Saad’s work broadly hopes to understand the interactions between the actual and virtual with specific focus on architecture and urbanism. Further, he is particularly interested in the ways objects and space can be utilised to tell stories, exploring this across several media including literature and film, and hoping to analyse its implications in games and other virtual worlds.
The 2021 Team
Sierra Mckinney
Sierra is a PhD student at the University of Montreal, Canada within the Department of Anthropology, specialising in Public Archaeology and Digital Heritage. Her research focuses on the development of affective public engagement strategies for archaeological and heritage sites. As part of this, she was a contributing member of the EMOTIVE project, an EU Funded initiative which sought to develop tools to produce impactful and emotionally resonant experiences. Currently, her doctoral research seeks to examine the negative emotions generated by heritage engagement, specifically guilt and shame, and how they can be addressed to promote reconciliation.
Dr. Katherine Cook
Katherine is an anthropological archaeologist at the Université de Montréal, specializing in an eclectic mix of digital technology, transatlantic history and public heritage. Katherine’s research explores the material manifestations of heritage, reconstructing social memory and material history, particularly in the transatlantic worlds of the UK, Barbados, and Canada.
Dr. Stuart Eve
Stuart is a founding partner of L – P : Archaeology, with over 15 years of experience as a professional archaeologist. He has a keen interest in the relationship between technology and archaeology. Stuart has a PhD in Archaeology from University College London – using augmented reality to merge the digital record with the in situ archaeological deposits. He brings this expertise to guide L – P through the process of academic publishing, as well as pushing the boundaries of what can be done with digital and physical data from commercial excavations.
Dr. Shawn Graham
Shawn is a digital archaeologist, in the history department at Carleton University.
The 2020 Team
Emma Gillies
Emma is a first year student in the Public History MA program at Carleton University. Her background in archaeology has cultivated an interest in the use of experimental archaeology, while her public history experience has encouraged her to combine the role of stroytelling and feeling alongside data. Her research considers the role of brewing technologies in Iron Age societies.
Dr. Shawn Graham
Shawn trained in Roman archaeology but has become over the years a digital archaeologist and digital humanist. In 2016 he won a Provost’s Fellowship in Teaching Award and was designated a Carleton University Teaching Fellow. He recently won a SSHRC Insight Grant for a project called ‘The Bone Trade: Studying the Online Trade in Human Remains with Machine Learning and Neural Networks’. The project website is at bonetrade.github.io. He is part of the multi-institution SSHRC Partnership Grant funded project, ‘CRANE: Computational Research in the Ancient Near East’ led by Tim Harrison of the University of Toronto. Graham’s sub-project involves using neural networks to complete archival photographs for photogrammetric reconstructions. He is also part of the SSHRC Insight Development Grant funded project ‘Nanohistory‘, led by Dr. Matt Milner of Memorial University, exploring graph-theoretic representations of historical events; his subproject seeks to reconstruct museum collecting histories using the nanohistory method.
Dr. Katherine Cook
Katherine is an anthropological archaeologist at the Université de Montréal, specializing in an eclectic mix of digital technology, transatlantic history and public heritage. Katherine’s research explores the material manifestations of heritage, reconstructing social memory and material history, particularly in the transatlantic worlds of the UK, Barbados, and Canada.
Dr. Stuart Eve
Stuart is a founding partner of L – P : Archaeology, with over 15 years of experience as a professional archaeologist. He has a keen interest in the relationship between technology and archaeology. Stuart has a PhD in Archaeology from University College London – using augmented reality to merge the digital record with the in situ archaeological deposits. He brings this expertise to guide L – P through the process of academic publishing, as well as pushing the boundaries of what can be done with digital and physical data from commercial excavations.
The 2017 Team
Tara Copplestone
Tara is a PhD student in Digital Heritage on a co-signed degree between the University of York and Aarhus University. Her current research investigates the potential of the video-game media form for documenting, analysing and displaying archaeological objects, places, practices and theory. Tara’s previous research focused on the interaction between archaeological sectors and the game development industry. Tara joined the Heritage Jam team in 2015 as the event coordinator. You can see some of Tara’s work on her website and blog.
Isobel Christian
Isobel is second year undergraduate student in Archaeology and Heritage at the University of York. Isobel has a keen interest in digital creativity and digital heritage, having made a video game with her fellow coursemates for their digital heritage field school at the end of their first year. She joins the Heritage Jam team in 2017 as the social media manager. You can see more of Isobel’s work on the Derventio Brigantum website:
L. Meghan Dennis
Meghan is a PhD student in Digital Archaeological Ethics at the University of York. Her research focuses on the real-world results of the interplay between archaeological ethics in archaeological practice and archaeological ethics as represented in video-games and spaces of digital play. Meghan has previously worked in cultural resource management, historic preservation, and research-based archaeology, as well as in online gaming as a content developer and community manager. She taught at the secondary and collegiate levels, ran her own archaeological consulting firm, and served as a community advisor regarding historic preservation compliance. Meghan’s current work can be found in on her project website.
Dr. Sara Perry
Sara is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Heritage Management at the University of York, one of the project leads on the EU-funded EMOTIVE Project and Director of the Visualisation Team at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. Her research centres on the relationship between imagery, media and knowledge-making in archaeology, particularly the capacity for different forms of presentation to create, elaborate and disrupt the discipline. Sara has been involved in several archaeological projects with a visualisation research focus, including the USAID-funded Memphis Egypt Site and Community Development Project, the English-Heritage funded Visualisation in Archaeology project, the Alan Sorrell project, the Seeing, Thinking, Doing project, the Urban Cultural Heritage and Creative Practice Collaborative, and the Portus Project showcase.
Colleen is Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage at the University of York Archaeology Department, and previously Research Fellow for the Centre for Digital Heritage & Research Fellow for the Marie Curie Eurotast project, responsible for the dissemination of new research evidence on the history and contemporary legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. Colleen’s PhD focused on the ways in which digital media (such as digital photography, video, mobile, and locational devices) can be used to facilitate archaeological narratives, with a view to cultivating a more multi-vocal, reflexive, and emancipatory cultural heritage practice. Colleen has worked as both a field archaeologist and a digital specialist in the USA (Hawaii, California, Texas), England, Turkey, Jordan, Greece, and Qatar on sites ranging from 9,000 to 100 years old.
Leeds Museums and Galleries
Kat Baxter, John Donegan, and Yvonne Hardman are our primary partners at Leeds Museums and Galleries.
Department of Archaeology, University of York
Our principal partner, who has made the Heritage Jam possible, is the University of York’s Department of Archaeology.
Additional Organisers and Contributors
Ian Kirkpatrick
Ian is a contemporary artist and graphic designer currently based at East Street Studios in Leeds, UK. Since 2008 Ian has exhibited his work across the UK and internationally, with shows in Montreal, New Orleans, London, Berlin, Rotterdam, New York and Chicago. He recently completed a project funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, for which he crafted several large sculptural works.
Neil Gevaux
Neil is the Computing Officer for the University of York archeology department. With a BSc in Archaeology from Bournemouth University, Neil has since worked as a researcher on the English Heritage funded Archaeological Investigations Project, and as an archivist for the Archaeology Data Service and Internet Archaeology, the latter by way of an IFA/HLF funded Training Bursary. Neil is now in charge of the running and maintenance of the computational facilities at the King’s Manor.
Tom Smith
Tom Smith is Collaborative Software Specialist at the University of York. His work involves devising new ways of cooperating and helping people to explore new tools and technologies. His interests include user-centred design, visual thinking and visual programming, and the democratisation of access to tools. Tom’s early work in educational technology research, involved developing tools to support online communities before the dawn of the web, and in 1997 he was invited to work with Apple’s Advanced Technology Group in Cupertino. Here Tom worked to create a tool for students to use Apple’s mobile device, the eMate, to collaboratively collect bird-watching data and visualise the results. This project became the basis of Think.com, the world’s largest educational community involving kids from all around the world, sponsored by Oracle.
Patrick Gibbs
Patrick graduated from the University of York with an MSc in Archaeological Information Systems, and has worked for the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture since 2003. He provides design and technical expertise for the creation of C&C’s digital resources. He also specialises in developing on-site digital interpretation schemes for churches and visitor attractions, and is a director of Heritage Technology Ltd.
Florence Laino
Flo was a Master’s student of the University of York’s archaeology department, who completed her undergraduate in Historical Archaeology also at York, and recently finished her MSc in Digital Heritage. Flo is currently heading The Heritage York Project, a student-led, heritage community project which promotes the shared enjoyment and awareness of cultural heritage interests through research driven events, exhibition and art. Flo was responsible for setting up the initial online and social media content relating to The Heritage Jam.
Dr. Julie Rugg
Julie is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Housing Policy, at the University of York. Alongside this fellowship, she heads the Cemetery Research Group, which investigates both historic and modern day cemetery conservation policy. The principal aim of the CRG is to expand an understanding of current and past burial culture in the modern period in the UK, by studying the ways in which social, emotional and religious concerns have interacted with economic and political imperatives, in order to frame burial practice. Julie was instumental in implementing and facilitating the 2014 Heritage Jam theme of “Burial”.
Dr. Anthony Masinton
Anthony is the Design and Technical Editor for the Centre for Christianity and Culture at the University of York. Specialising in Medieval Archaeology, his doctoral work examined late medieval relationships between God and man in English parish churches.
Prior to his current role, Anthony served as the Computing Officer in the University of York Archaeology department, developing the use of computer modeling techniques to assist research into the use of space in historic buildings. He has particular expertise in buildings survey, Computer-Aided-Design, virtual reality modeling, and mobile app development. His most recent visualisation projects include the modeling of the interior of the Guild Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon, and also St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster.
Dr. Gareth Beale
Gareth is a research fellow at the Centre for Digital Heritage, based at the University of York. Specialising in archaeological computing, he completed his doctoral research at the University of Southampton on the application of 3D computer graphics and digital recording to analyse and produce hypothetical visualisations of painted Roman statuary from Herculaneum. Gareth has worked on several prominent archaeological projects around the world, including the Portus project, and the JISC Datapool project, and currently co-directs the Basing House Community Archaeology project, as well as the Re-Reading the British Memorial Project. His research interests include early modern archaeology, archaeological imaging, and image data management in archaeology.
Nicole Beale
Nicole is a CHASE Going Digital Scholar, studying for a PhD with the University of Southampton’s Web Science Doctoral Training Centre and the Archaeological Computing Research Group. Her doctoral research concerns the use of the Internet to improve access to cultural heritage, particularly through open data initiatives, social media, and the application of low-cost technology solutions for museums and public archaeology projects. Nicole is a co-Director of the Basing House Project, and the Re-Reading the British Memorial Project.