Research Affiliates & Alumni

 

 

Lab Manager

Sarah Cipes

Affiliation: The SpokenWeb Project

Sarah was the 2022 AMP Lab PRC fellow and is a PhD student in the IGS Digital Arts & Humanities theme at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Her research combines audio digitization, vocal studies and humour philosophy, and incorporates recorded comedic performances. She has contributed to digitization efforts with the British Columbia Regional Digitized History project. Sarah graduated with a master’s degree in information science (Archives and Record Management focus) from the University of Toronto in 2021 and holds a BA in English from UBC Okanagan. She acknowledges that she lives and works on Syilx Okanagan territory.

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Ronnie, a person with short dark hair and glasses, wearing a black t-shirt stands against a grey background and looks directly at the camera, head slightly tilted with a neutral expression.

Ronnie Cheng

Affiliation: Press Play AR Team

Ronnie is a Hong Konger interdisciplinary artist who has worked primarily with film, animation, creative writing, and printmaking. Their research interests lie within the intersections of Hong Kong/East Asian studies, migration/diaspora studies, queer theory, affect theory, media studies, and trauma theory, as well as the blending of literary and visual art. Ronnie was the recipient of the 2021 Vernon Film Society Media Prize, and their short documentary Becoming Queer Joy has been selected for 5 film festivals worldwide thus far, premiering at the 2023 Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Currently, Ronnie is in the final year of a Bachelor of Media Studies with a minor in English at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.

A red-headed woman wearing a red and black plaid jacket looks back over her shoulder at the camera. In front of her is blue lake water.

Kailee Fawcett

Affiliation: Press Play AR Team

Kailee is a Bachelor of Media Studies student at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus. While her primary focus is film and animation, her academic journey began with a dual interest in Theatre and Environmental Studies, driven by a fascination with the human dimensions of Climate Change. Kailee’s initial academic pursuits continue to shape the thematic elements of her work, providing a foundational lens through which she explores the intersection of nature and the human experience in her art. Her style is marked by a keen exploration of the diverse and expressive qualities that various textures bring to her art, providing a tactile yet digital experience. 

A young man with short dark hair wearing a light grey polo shirt stands at a podium giving a presentation. A slide on a large screen behind him reads "Audio Approach."Kai Hagen

Affiliation: Press Play AR Team (Undergraduate Mentor)

Kai is a Bachelor of Media Studies student with a minor in visual arts. He is a multi-disciplinary artist who works mainly in audio engineering, sound design, music production, digital media arts, film production, and photography. He has also done branding work for the Okanagan Visualization and Immersion Lab, as well as Dr. Emily Murphy’s ReMedia Lab. Because of his many interests, Kai is constantly challenging himself to try out new things. Kai has previously worked with the AMP Lab as an undergraduate research assistant / artist on the 2023 edition of PressPlay!, and has is excited to return as a mentor and audio producer for the 2024 edition of the PressPlay! project.

A young woman with dark hair sits on a brown couch reading a large book. She is wearing longsleeve white top and jeans.

Wanling He

Affiliation: Press Play LightBox Team

Wanling He is an Art History and Visual Culture major at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus. As a visual creature, she not only loves to explore the visual world but more so in the narratives constructed by the visual languages. Her latest research project focuses on the enduring legacy of Peach Blossom Spring, an ancient Chinese tale from the third century, whose visual narrative continues to echo and flourish in contemporary art. She aspires to contribute her multilingual abilities and unique cultural insights as a curator or researcher in the art world. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, thrifting, screenprinting, and most recently learning about Taoist divination.

A young man with a grey hoodie pulled up over his head looks to the left of the frame with water and coastline in the background. We see him in profile.

Asana Hughes

Affiliation: Press Play LightBox Team

Asana is an interdisciplinary artist from Coldstream, BC, who has walked a path of creativity throughout every stage of life he can remember. He is currently in his third year of studies toward a B.F.A. in Visual Arts with a Minor in Art History at UBC’s Okanagan Campus. Through his work, Asana aims to discuss some fundamental aspects of being, the journey inward, and the patterns of nature.  He is consistently influenced by Yogic and Buddhist philosophy and meditation practices, his Celtic heritage, and an amateur interest in vortex mathematics. Asana’s current art practice includes a range of two-dimensional mixed media, painting, drawing, printmaking, installation and sculpture, recently showing work and creating public artwork around the Okanagan. Whichever medium or shape his work might take, Asana maintains a consistent interest in upholding a spiritually, sociologically and ecologically informed and inspired art practice.

A young man wearing a purple flower in his dark curly hair looks up laughing against and urban sky line behind him. He wears a blue tshirt and navy cardigan.

Yashvardhan Joshi

Affiliation: Press Play LightBox team

Yashvardhan Joshi is a second-year international student from India studying Bachelor of Media Studies. His passion for visual arts started when he was in eighth grade and picked up street photography as a hobby. This led him to create photo projects that showcase mundane happenings of life from a documentary perspective. Over the summer, he started soundscaping the sounds he recorded on his phone in downtown Kelowna to create narrative-driven soundscapes. This has made him experiment with sound design and audio programming to work towards cohesion that blends photography, filmmaking, generative art, and sound design to create experimental films.

Matthew Kenney

Affiliation: Press Play LightBox team (Undergraduate Mentor)

Matthew is a Bachelor of Media Studies student with a Minor in Visual Arts studying at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus. He has been creating graphic art since 2019 and working as a freelance designer since 2020. His main interests lie in the deconstruction and breakdown of visual forms using texture and digital distortion paired with digital painting. Matthew is pursuing a career as an art and creative director and has worked on a number of projects in this regard such as lookbook shoots, catalog designs, and album covers.

Lauren Naidoo

Affiliation: Press Play AR Team

Lauren is a Bachelor of Media Studies student focused on experimenting with her work and expanding in the artistic world. Her main priority is always making something that evokes emotions and separates the viewer from the viewed. Her recent focus is in digital art, design, and 2d animation, where she has found a passion in bringing her characters and world designs to life. Creative writing, film making, graphic design, and creative coding are all interests Lauren continues to explore and practice, pushing the boundaries of her own limits and possibilities.

Ains Reid

Affiliation: UBCO Zine Club

Ains is a trans man born and raised in Winfield, BC. He is working on his Bachelor of Fine Arts at UBC’s Okanagan campus. Ains’ heart lies with ink drawing and illustration, but he also enjoys sculpting with clay, metal, and wood. He dreams of writing and illustrating a graphic novel. Outside of art, Ains enjoys skiing, cycling, and fountain pens. Exploring the beauty that British Columbia has to offer with his family is one of Ains’ favourite ways to spend his days off.

An Tran turns and smiles over her shoulder at the camera. White and yellow flowers are arranged in vases in the background on a table.An Tran

Affiliation: Press Play AR Team

An is a second-year Bachelor of Science student at UBC Okanagan who is majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Visual Art. She is from Vietnam and has been doodling in every corner of her textbooks since her primary school days. Her passions lie in digital art and games, and her current aspiration is to create a complete visual novel game. In her free time, An enjoys playing Japanese rhythm games and reading manga. She is eager to be part of the team for the undergraduate Press Play program.

A young blond woman raises sunglasses over her head as she leans back in a boat on the water.

Sabrina Warwick

Affiliation: Press Play LightBox Team

Sabrina is a fourth-year Bachelor of Arts student at UBC Okanagan majoring in English. She is from Edmonton, Alberta and has enjoyed living in the beautiful province of British Columbia to complete her studies. One day, she would love to pursue a Master’s of English, perhaps even a PhD, and become a professor. She thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to be a high school teacher either, but she’d like to try the university professor gig first and maybe write a book too. To inspire students the way her past educators have inspired her would be an honour. She has been passionate about literature as an art form since she was in elementary school, always writing and sharing her little stories. Throughout her degree, she has found her favourite type of literature to be modernist and post-modernist works. She is excited to bring some modernist poetry to life in her Press Play project! 

Graduate Research Assistants and Affiliates

A woman with blond curly hair, wearing long tan coat walks away from the camera on a boardwalk by the lake.

Megan Butchart

Affiliation: The SpokenWeb Project

Megan Butchart is a student in the Master of Archival Studies program at UBC Vancouver. Her research interests are in community archives, participatory archives, and archival labour. Megan also holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Honours and History from UBC Okanagan and a Master of Arts in English from the University of Alberta. She is grateful to live on the traditional and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) People.

Tara Nicholson

Affiliation: The SpokenWeb Project

Tara Nicholson is an artist and SSHRC-funded PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies (IGS), Digital Arts & Humanities theme. Her research documents Arctic extinction and permafrost studies through a more-than-human lens. She has exhibited across Canada and internationally while receiving funding from the BC Arts Council and Canada Council. She attended ‘Earthed’ an international eco-art residency at the Banff Centre and was awarded the Künstlerhaus Dortmund Artist-in-Residence Award. She teaches at the University of Victoria and holds degrees from Toronto Metropolitan and Concordia University. Her work was recently part of the UBC & Exeter University Catalyst Grant and will exhibited at the Lake Country Art Gallery this fall.

Sarah Cipes

Affiliation: The SpokenWeb Project

Sarah was the 2022 AMP Lab PRC fellow and is a PhD student in the IGS Digital Arts & Humanities theme at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Her research combines audio digitization, vocal studies and humour philosophy, and incorporates recorded comedic performances. She has contributed to digitization efforts with the British Columbia Regional Digitized History project. Sarah graduated with a master’s degree in information science (Archives and Record Management focus) from the University of Toronto in 2021 and holds a BA in English from UBC Okanagan. She acknowledges that she lives and works on Syilx Okanagan territory.

Erin Scott

Affiliation: Principal’s Research Chair Fellow 2022

Erin Scott is a poet/performer, artist/scholar, Scottish/Canadian living on the unceded territory and ancestral lands of the Syilx/Okanagan Peoples (Kelowna, BC). They hold an MFA in Writing and Performance from UBC Okanagan. Erin is a PhD student in IGS Digital Arts and Humanities whose research-creation work contemplates a ‘both/and’ identity in relation to cultural, geographical, and traditional belonging through the creation of digital poetic texts and dialogic performance. Erin is a founding member of the literary arts organization Inspired Word Café. Their performance work has presented at festivals across Canada, she has won the John Lent Poetry/Prose Award and the Okanagan Short Story Contest, and is a graduate of the Banff Centre’s Writing Studio program. They have two chapbooks, two spoken word albums, two cats, four kids, and one incredible partner. She held the 2023 PRC Fellow position.

Jordanna Marshall

Affiliation: The Negative Heritage Project

Jordanna is a Master’s student and Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Her ethnographic research explores the intersections of animal welfare and conservation from the perspectives of wildlife rehabilitators in the Thompson-Okanagan. Jordanna received her Bachelor of Arts at the UBC Okanagan campus in 2019, where she held an Undergraduate Research Assistant position on the Disruptive Technologies and Negative Heritage Project. This project investigates the use of digital technologies as a conservation strategy for the archaeological site of Palmyra. Jordanna has since resumed working on the project and is eager to contribute to informing policy making and best practices concerning the conservation of heritage sites.

Postdoctoral Research Associates

TBA

Former Principal Investigators

Constance Crompton

Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa.
Professional Link: https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/members/3039
Personal Link: http://constancecrompton.com/

AMP Lab Alumni

SpokenWeb Project (PI: Dr. Karis Shearer)

Undergraduate Research Assistants

  • Atmaza Chattopadhyay (2022-23)
  • Rowan Pickard (2022-23)
  • Nour Sallam (2019-20)
  • Lauren St. Clair (2019-20)
  • Amy Thiessen (2018-21)
  • Megan Butchart (2018-20)
  • Evan Berg (2018-19)
  • Stephen French (2018-19)
  • Emma Smith (2018)
  • Cole Mash (2013-14)
  • Justin Kroeker (2013-14)
  • Eric Huang (2013-14)
  • Lee Hannigan (2012-13)

Graduate Research Assistants

  • Xiaoxuan Huang (2021-23)
  • Erin Scott (2022-23)
  • Jon Corbett (2021-22)
  • Judith Burr (2020-22)
  • Yasaman Lotfizadeh (2019-22)
  • Ahlam Bavi (2020-21)
  • Craig Carpenter (2020-21)
  • Caitlin Voth (2018-19)
  • Mathieu Aubin (2018-19)
  • Deserae Gogel (2018-19)
  • Cole Mash (2014-16)

The Confluence of Religious Cultures in Medieval Historiography (PI: Dr. Francisco Peña)

Undergraduate Research Assistants

  • Nyshaya Leck (2018-19)

Graduate Research Assistants

  • Saifullah Mafuz (2019-21)
  • Cassidy Acheson (2019-20)

Postdoctoral Fellows

  • Miguel Las Heras Calvo (2022-23)

Digital Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage (PI: Dr. Lindsay Der)

Undergraduate Research Assistants

  • Shanneen Chiu (2019-20)
  • Jordanna Marshall (2018-20)
  • Haley Seven-Deers (2018-20)

Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada (PI: Dr. Constance Crompton)