Our Team
Have a question for us? Contact the Sherman Centre team at scds@mcmaster.ca.
Interested in discussing your project with one of our staff members? Book an appointment.
Want to get to know the team? Read the “Meet Our Team” interview series.
Andrea Zeffiro, Academic Director – Andrea (she/her) is an Associate Professor in critical technology studies in the Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts and an affiliate faculty member in the Master of Public Policy in Digital Society program and the Cultural Studies and Critical Theory MA program. Andrea received a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from Concordia University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University. Andrea’s current areas of research and teaching include critical data studies, data justice, critical cybersecurity studies, qualitative digital research methods, and critical and speculative design.
Email Andrea at zeffiroa@mcmaster.ca.
Jay Brodeur, Administrative Director – Jay (he/him) brings to the Centre years of experience working with data in a wide variety of formats and interdisciplinary contexts. A scientist by training with a PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences, he’s comfortable working and advising on all kinds of data-related activities, ranging from data wrangling and integration to analysis and mapping to research data management. Jay’s also keenly interested in the application of digital approaches to support experiential learning opportunities within and outside of the classroom.
Email Jay at brodeujj@mcmaster.ca.
Danica Evering, Research Data Management Specialist – Danica (they/them) brings expansive experience with research support, education, project management, advocacy, and knowledge translation. They braid together broad fluency in social practice art, healthcare, community research, data, and systems development to provide comprehensive RDM services. Danica is available to help students, postdocs, faculty, and staff with RDM through the data lifecycle—Data Management Plans, storage and backup, data security, data sharing. With an MA in Media Studies from Concordia, they are interested in fostering RDM within curious scholars and disciplines.
Email Danica at everingd@mcmaster.ca. Schedule a consultation with Danica.
John Fink, Digital Scholarship Librarian – John’s (he/they) talents lie in complex and innovative systems administration and project management. He also has an interest in the maker/hacker element in digital scholarship, and is frequently spotted tinkering with esoteric hardware. If you are interested in having the Sherman Centre support your project, John is an excellent first contact.
Email John at jfink@mcmaster.ca. Schedule a consultation with John.
Christine Homuth, Spatial Information Specialist – Christine (she/her) draws on her wide range of experiences to provide support for teaching and research to students, researchers, and faculty members working with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geospatial data. Some of her more recent work includes georeferencing historical maps and developing web map indexes as finding aids to make the Lloyd Reeds Map Collection’s resources more readily accessible.
Email Christine at homuthc@mcmaster.ca. Schedule a consultation with Christine.
Vivek Jadon, Data Specialist – Vivek (he/him) provides research support in the use of numeric research data. As part of his role, Vivek is McMaster University’s official representative for Statistics Canada’s Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) program and Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Both of these programs provide researchers with vast archive of research data from various disciplines for high quality research and instruction. Vivek is also involved in building awareness and promoting RDM activities/services at McMaster.
Email Vivek at jadonvs@mcmaster.ca. Schedule a consultation with Vivek.
Chelsea Miya, Post Doctoral Fellow – Chelsea Miya (she/her) has research and teaching interests in critical code studies, nineteenth-century American literature, and the digital humanities. She has held research positions with the SpokenWeb Network, the Kule Research Institute (Kias), and the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC). She co-edited the anthology Right Research: Modelling Sustainable Research Practices in the Anthropocene (Open Book Publishers 2021), and her article “Student-Driven Digital Learning: A Call to Action” appears in People, Practice, Power: Digital Humanities outside the Center (MIT Press 2021).
Email Chelsea at miyac@mcmaster.ca. Consultation link coming soon!
Isaac Pratt, Research Data Management Specialist (On Leave) – Isaac (he/him) is a research scientist by training and has a PhD in Anatomy & Cell Biology. He leverages nearly a decade of interdisciplinary research experience to help support students, staff, and faculty. His expertise lies in questions surrounding data storage, security, planning, archival, and sharing. Isaac also provides support and curation services for McMaster Dataverse. His other interests include reproducible research methods, open science, and data science.
Email Isaac at pratti@mcmaster.ca. Schedule a consultation with Isaac.
Subhanya Sivajothy, Data Analysis and Visualization Librarian – Subhanya (she/her) brings a background of research in data justice, science and technology studies, and environmental humanities. She is currently thinking through participatory data design which allow for visualizations that are empowering for the end user. She also has experience in Research Data Management—particularly data cleaning and curation. Do not hesitate to reach out to her if you would like to talk more about data analysis and visualization as they evolve throughout the research process.
Email Subhanya at sivajos@mcmaster.ca. Schedule a consultation with Subhanya.
SCDS Affiliates
Saman Goudarzi, Cartographic Resources Librarian – Saman’s work operates at the intersection of information science and critical geography. She’s particularly interested in the ways in which community-owned and -governed infrastructure can contribute to equitable knowledge systems. Currently, Saman takes care of McMaster’s Lloyd Reeds Map Collection, ensuring community members are able to access, understand, and use the collection for teaching and research.
Myron Groover, Archives and Rare Books Librarian – After reading History at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, Myron completed his library and archival studies at the University of British Columbia. His work currently focuses on collection development and teaching in archives and book history. Myron’s teaching practise seeks to facilitate direct student engagement with special collections materials as interstices of memory, labour, material culture, and shared meaning-making.
Katie Harding, Learning Support Librarian – Katie works with the Faculty of Engineering to help engineering students learn how to understand, find, read, interpret, and create different types of information sources. She has spent the last decade teaching and providing research support to students and researchers in science and engineering. Her recent projects have focused on the development of some exciting new open educational resources.
Devon Mordell, Educational Developer (MacPherson Institute) – Devon draws on her experience in media art, hobbyist programming and instructional design to teach workshops for the Sherman Centre. Her areas of interest in digital scholarship include data visualization, computational analyses of texts, sonification and critical digital humanities. Her research practice explores the algorithmic culture industry and platform psychogeography.
Tim Ribaric, Digital Scholarship Librarian (Brock University) – Tim (he/him) holds a Masters of Computer Science and is presently working on his PhD in the Educational Studies program at Brock University. His work encompasses many different areas of digital scholarship including the teaching of programming languages but he focuses on social media and text analysis. He is also a certified Carpentries Instructor and past member of the Carpentries Advisory Committee.
Abeer Siddiqui, Science Librarian – Abeer’s preferred introduction is “Abeer is a librarian and she does things.” Specifically, Abeer works as McMaster’s Science Librarian and as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Science. She advocates for effective science communication through storytelling as a way to build trust and create conversations within communities.
SCDS Summer Students
Shrey Acharya (he/him) holds the role of Research Data Management Assistant. He is a fourth year student in the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program at McMaster. Bringing with him an interdisciplinary background from various research fields, Shrey is interested in exploring the intersection of different areas of study and the research data life-cycle. Outside of RDM, Shrey enjoys playing chess, practicing the flute, and plane-spotting.
Robyn Berardi (she/her) holds the role of Library Assistant – Experts and Bibliometrics. She is working with the Sherman Centre Experts and Bibliometrics teams on various projects, primarily ensuring the upkeep of McMaster Experts information and profiles. She is pursuing a BA in Anthropology and looking forward to connecting what she has learned throughout her studies with the experience gained from working at the Sherman Centre.
Richie Motorgeanu (he/him) holds the role of Learning Resource Development Assistant. He is an undergraduate student studying Computer Science at McMaster University. Within the SCDS, he serves as a Learning Resource Development Assistant, where his main focus is transforming and enhancing the centre’s workshop materials into interactive and accessible learning resources. Outside of the Sherman Centre, Richie also has a keen interest in game development.
Lucas Beckering Vinckers Stofer (he/him) holds the role of Library Assistant – GIS. He recently completed his first year of the MSc in Earth and Environmental Science. Lucas’s summer work focuses on data creation, specifically building elevation data for 3D scene generation.
SCDS Research Associates
Alexis-Carlota Cochrane (she/they) is a Ph.D. Student in Communication, New Media, and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. Her doctoral research explores online identity, digital culture, and algorithmic censorship, analyzing how identity, power and censorship intersect on platforms. She acts as a Graduate Affiliate at Northwestern University’s Centre for Latinx Digital Media and was a past Sherman Centre Graduate Resident. Currently, Alexis is collaborating on a project that critically explores the intersection of data breaches and security crises through experimental approaches like sonification.
Blake Dillon is a communications specialist with a diverse background in journalism, sci comms, graphic design, and website development. Since earning a diploma in journalism from Sheridan College more than a decade ago, Blake has been balancing a busy professional schedule with the dogged (but part-time) pursuit of an Honours B.A. in Communication Studies. Having served as Editor for a handful of Canadian publications, Blake now finds himself working where he studies, leading communications for McMaster University’s Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR). At the IIDR, Blake is responsible for promoting the Institute’s research initiatives and spearheading communications endeavours for the Institute’s peripheral projects, such as the Public Health Agency of Canada-commissioned ‘AMR Network.’ On the home stretch of his undergraduate studies, Blake is earning some of his final few credits as a Research Associate at the Sherman Centre, where he is conducting exploratory research on cybersecurity and digital inequalities.
Evangeline (Vange) Holtz-Schramek holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing from UBC and the University of East Anglia and two Master’s degrees: one in English and Women’s and Gender Studies from U of T, and the other in Social Policy (MPPA) from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson). Vange is a Ph.D. candidate in the Communication, New Media & Cultural Studies program (CNMCS) at McMaster, where their research engages with online mothering through the lenses of the political economy of media, auto/biography studies, critical race theory, social media research ethics, gendered disinformation, communities of mental health and addiction online, and other urgent intersectional feminist contestations. Vange’s vocational expertise in educational and community consulting supports their present contribution to The Sherman Centre: they are currently collaborating on a knowledge-mobilization series that endeavours to contend with prescient questions in the social science field of data justice through arts-fueled interdisciplinary and imaginative solutions.
Natasha Malik (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in Communication, New Media, and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. She received her BSc in Health and Disease, and English, and her MI in User Experience Design and Critical Information Policy Studies from the University of Toronto. Natasha’s research is in the areas of participatory design, information design practice(s), and cultural studies of design. She is focused on threading together design theory and practice to bolster socially responsible and participatory work in Human-Computer Interaction.
At the Sherman Centre, Natasha is collaborating on a project to develop a workshop series that applies a participatory and speculative design framework to facilitate communal reflection and action upon experiences of cyber (in)securities.
Sam McEwan is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts and co-coordinator of the CNMCS Ph.D. peer-mentorship program. Her current research explores representations of women’s bisexuality in popular music and the influence of recommendation algorithms on the craft of songwriting. She has previously enjoyed performing with the Cybernetic Orchestra out of McMaster’s Networked Imagination Lab. Her other research interests include data sonification, intersections of nostalgia and video game music, visuality and gesture in live performance, and media-based modes of LGBTQ+ allyship online. Sam is collaborating on a project that uses experimental approaches like sonification to understand the affective dimensions of data breaches.
Amanda Montague – Amanda received her PhD from the University of Ottawa and acted as the Sherman Centre’s Postdoctoral Fellow from 2019-2022. Her dissertation, Mobile Memories: Canadian Cultural Memory in the Digital Age, considers the impact of mobile technologies and locative media narratives on everyday experiences of memory and place. She is an award-winning teacher and has developed several technology-based experiential learning projects, specifically ones that foster collaboration and partnerships within and outside the university.
Gil Niessen (they/them) is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication, New Media, and Cultural Studies whose research focuses on decolonizing cloud gaming technologies and infrastructures. Gil assists in grant writing and editing and has experience designing research-specific methods for projects such as focus groups, textual analysis, and discourse analysis. Gil believes in making research accessible to different audiences through non-academic avenues, such as infographics, blog posts, and data visualization. Gil is interested in alternative/speculative design and exploring optimism in the potential futures of infrastructures that oppress and exploit users. Gil is collaborating on a project using sonification and visualization to understand the interrelationship between data breaches and other geopolitical crises.
Clementine Oberst is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication, New Media, and Cultural Studies. With a background in cultural studies and film and television studies, Clementine specializes in screen studies and is particularly interested in the rhetorical, aesthetic, and ideological strategies of reality television. Her Ph.D. thesis project looks at the docusoap genre of reality television through an intersectional feminist lens informed by theories of queerness, race, class, and dis/ability. Clementine is currently collaborating on a project using digital humanities approaches to explore the intersections between data breaches and other forms of security crises.
Katie Waring is a PhD student in Communication, New Media, and Cultural Studies. Her research lies at the intersection of disability justice, new media, and community engagement, and her doctoral project includes building a digital community archive alongside patients incarcerated at the former Craig Colony for Epileptics in Western New York. Katie’s work centers accessible design practices and participatory storytelling. She also holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh. At the Sherman Centre, Katie is collaborating on a project which explores the digital storytelling applications of the team’s research on data breaches.