Resistance Mapping Project Team
Resistance Mapping is led by a highly collaborative team of faculty, staff, students, and community partners across the Rochester, NY region. From the start, we have been working toward a decentralized leadership model, with the goal that everyone involved has ownership over pieces of the project. Decisions about project content and design have been made collectively, and student team members from the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester have been central to project development.
We are, in part, a collaboration among institutions.
The Antiracist Curriculum Project is committed to empowering students, teachers, and communities with instructional resources on the local history of structural racism and civil rights.
The Digital Humanities and Social Sciences Program at the Rochester Institute of Technology pairs the liberal arts with digital technologies to immerse students in dynamic interdisciplinary fields. The program combines theory and practice and encourages students to seek opportunities where critical thinking guides the use and development of digital media.
Digital Scholarship at River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester supports faculty and student research through the use of digital tools and methods in order to create new knowledge and experiential learning opportunities. They specialize in the creation of digital tools and resources; provide support for web-based scholarly initiatives; and partner with faculty, students, and the community on digital research projects.
We are also a collaboration of community members, many of whose work on place-based racism and resistance extends beyond the bounds of this digital project.
Current Team Members
Leah Green is an alumnae of the Rochester institute of Technology with a BS in Museum Studies. In her research, she explores new ways to make museums and academia more accessible to their surrounding communities. As the Project Manager on Resistance Mapping, Green facilitates communications between team members involved on the project and contributes her expertise as a Rochester City School District graduate.
Alana Kornaker (she/her) is a freelance cartographer born and raised in Rochester, NY. A senior at Middlebury College (Vermont), with academic foci in geography, religion, and environmental studies, she is a trained GIS specialist and is passionate about the art of storytelling. Kornaker hopes that by helping people develop a place-based understanding of the greater Rochester area, users of the Resistance Mapping tools will feel more personally connected to the present-day implications of this area's racial history.
Ching-Lam is a graduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology studying visual communication design with a focus on UX/UI design. She is the lead digital designer on Resistance Mapping, focusing on the end-to-end experience encompassing visual and interaction design.
Praksha Maheshwari is a Computer Science graduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is a passionate full stack engineer, who loves to work in the intersection between front-end and back-end development. When she's not busy with a programming assignment or website design, you can catch her watching Korean Series or playing badminton on campus.
Whitney Sperrazza (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of English and Digital Humanities at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Sperrazza specializes in the interdisciplinary study of science, literature, and gender. In both her research and teaching, she explores the rich intersections of humanities thinking and digital tools.
Blair Tinker is currently the GIS specialist for the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Rochester. After receiving his MA in Geography from Binghamton University, he spent time teaching and practicing GIS and related spatial technologies in Virginia and California. His interests include mapping/GIS, data visualization and open source spatial tools. He guest lectures in classes across the UofR and teaches workshops on a variety of digital tools.
Rebekah Walker (she/her) is the Digital Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Walker advises students, staff, and faculty on methods of digital pedagogy and project implementation. She leads instruction sessions, provides one-on-one consultations, and supports the full life cycle of digital project development.
Project Advisory Board
Kristin Doughty, University of Rochester
Kathryn Mariner, University of Rochester
Joshua Meltzer, Rochester Institute of Technology
Jenn Poggi, Rochester Institute of Technology
Emily Sherwood, University of Rochester
Past Team Members
Jan Adil, Rochester Institute of Technology
Zee Chauhan, Rochester Institute of Technology
Eleni Duret, University of Rochester
Amanda Liang, University of Rochester
Alonni Reid, University of Rochester