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CAS in the Media Arts and Sciences Media Headlines

CAS faculty receive Office of Research awards

The WSU Office of Research presented awards to eight faculty members, including three in the College of Arts and Sciences, for their outstanding achievements in research, as part of opening ceremonies for WSU Research Week.

Kimberly Christen.
Kim Christen

The Creative Activity, Research and Scholarship Award went to Kim Christen, professor in the Department of English, director of the Digital Technology and Culture Program, director of the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation, and director of Digital Initiatives for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Christen has generated more than $4 million in external funding, including WSU’s first institutional grant from the Mellon Foundation. She has leveraged this support to create and sustain interdisciplinary projects and workspaces, most prominently establishing with WSU Libraries the new Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation.

She directs several digital humanities projects, including the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal, a collaboratively curated site of Plateau cultural materials; Mukurtu CMS, a free and open source content management system and community digital archive aimed at the unique needs of indigenous communities; and the Sustainable Heritage Network, an online community of people dedicated to making the preservation and digitization of cultural heritage materials sustainable, simple, and secure.

Tammy Barry.
Tammy Barry

An Exceptional Service to the Office of Research Award went to Tammy Barry, professor in the Department of Psychology. Barry co-chairs the Research and Arts Committee & the Centers, Institutes, or Laboratories task force, and provides outstanding support for the many Office of Research initiatives.

Peter Reilly.
Peter Reilly

The awards included a prize for submitting the best idea to the National Science Foundation’s 2026 Idea Machine, a competition to help set the U.S. agenda for fundamental research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and STEM education. The winner of this award is Peter Reilly, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, for his idea “Ultra-High Mass Spectrometry: The Next Frontier.”

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WSU Insider

Acclaimed artist, WSU art professor to show work in latest DrewBoy Creative show

Doug Gast.Douglas Gast has lived all over the place. But in the Tri-Cities, the acclaimed artist and art professor has found a good fit.

“It’s a great community—the perfect size. It’s experiencing growth, something that means possibility,” he said.

Part of that growth is in the local art scene, which is particularly exciting for Gast, who is an associate professor of fine arts at WSU Tri-Cities and administers the bachelor of fine arts and Digital Technology & Culture programs.

Gast is contributing to the scene by taking part Friday in the latest show at DrewBoy Creative gallery in Richland.

His own personal artwork aims to “identify and make use of the elements of the media that are fundamental to its definition” and create “physical and conceptual spaces where thought and communication can occur,” according to his artist statement.

His work is designed to be “thought through, instead of being thought of. It calls into question a variety of controversial socio-political situations.”

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Professor’s radio art supports women broadcasters in Africa

BarberWomen broadcasters in Zambia and Zimbabwe, Africa, are sharing their traditional culture via radio art with the help of radio artists from 17 countries, including John Barber, clinical associate professor in the Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver.

Although they share the Tonga history and culture, Zambia and Zimbabwe are divided geographically by a large man-made lake, Lake Kariba, which makes up much of the border between the two countries. A new CD compilation that includes Barber‘s radio art work “Zambezi River Bridge” is helping to connect them.

“Zambezi River Bridge” was selected to be part of “A Radio Bridge Across the Zambezi,” a CD to be sold on the popular online sound-sharing platform BandCamp. All proceeds from online sales will benefit Zongwe FM, a community radio station in Sinazongwe, Zambia, and the women of Zubo Trust across the Zambezi River in Binga, Zimbabwe.

 

In late 1950, the Zambezi River valley was flooded as water gathered behind the Kariba Dam. The BaTonga people lost their ancestral land along the banks of the Zambezi and were forced to move. Today, Lake Kariba divides the Tonga community, and Zongwe FM radio provides not only a means of communication but also self-help, organization and cultural survival.

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WSU Insider

‘Wonder Woman’ — Turning obstacles into opportunities

If life experience were an academic program, Natalie Ewing would already have her master’s degree.

Natalie Ewing.Like many other nontraditional students, Ewing encountered her share of detours and unexpected turns along the path to college. She grew up amid drugs, alcohol, physical and emotional abuse. Today, Ewing is a digital technology and culture, and social science major at WSU Vancouver. A scholarship helped her afford the college experience.

In 2015, she went back to school. It took three terms, many advising appointments and lots of tears to get her footing as a nontraditional college student. But Ewing was determined to have “a real college experience.”

She joined clubs, attended events and volunteered. “I never thought that I would be a true-blue college student, but here I am,” she said proudly.

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WSU Insider

Bringing the past into the future: Huna Heritage Foundation debuts online archive

It’s been the mission of the Huna Heritage Foundation (HHF) to perpetuate the Huna Tlingit culture and promote education for future generations, and it plans to do both of those things with the launch of its digital archive.

Kimberly Christen
Christen

One of the challenges HHF faced was finding a platform that met its needs. While it’s HHF’s goal to share pieces of culture and history, some information should only be accessible to certain people or groups, said HHF Executive Director Amelia Wilson. It’s HHF’s goal to not only host photos but to eventually have audio and video recordings as well, but some of that might be sensitive material — like clan songs, owned by a clan, which would only be made available to people inside that clan. HHF settled on the open source platform and content management system called Mukurtu. It was developed by Dr. Kimberly Christen of Washington State University to meet the archival needs of an indigenous group in Australia, Wilson said.

“This software is grassroots, community driven, and (a) customizable site that would allow us to draw upon our Hoonah cultural protocols to direct our access levels,” she said.

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Capital City Weekly

Juneau Empire