Researcher Profiles
Researchers
Lauren Beck. Ph.D.
The director of the CEMVC, Lauren also holds the Canada Research Chair in Intercultural Encounter and the rank of Professor of Hispanic Studies & Visual and Material Culture Studies at Mount Allison University, Canada. She researches early modern visual culture and word and image studies, particularly in the Atlantic world, and pursues questions arising from race, gender, and place of origin in the settler-colonial milieu. Her recent books include Illustrating el Cid, 1498-Today (McGill-Queens UP, 2019), Firsting in the Early Modern Atlantic World (Routledge, 2019), and, with Christina Ionescu, Visualizing the Text: From Manuscript Culture to Caricature (Delaware UP, 2017). She has published articles in Renaissance Quarterly, the Journal of Women’s History, Image and Narrative, the Journal of North African Studies, among others. Her research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, and the Canada Research Chair programme.
Michael Cormier, Ph.D.
Dr. Michael Cormier has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Mount Allison University since July 2018. His primary research interests lie in the areas of computer vision and machine learning. Dr. Cormier is particularly interested in types of images that have been under-explored in computer vision research, including illustrations, artwork, and web pages. Ongoing applied research projects include the identification of media and methods in printed illustrations, especially from the early modern period, automated generation of metadata for scanned books, and interpreting the structure of web pages using visual evidence (in order to support assistive interfaces such as screen readers). On the theoretical side, he is currently working on methods for incorporating probabilistic reasoning into convolutional neural network models. After completing a BSc at St. Francis Xavier University in 2011, he went on to graduate studies at the University of Waterloo, completing an MMath in 2013 and a PhD in 2018.
Ana M. Fernández, Ph.D.
Ana is a post-doctoral research fellow at the CEMVC. She has recently earned her Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa/Université d'Ottawa, Ontario in 2022. She holds master’s degrees in Education (M.Ed.) and Spanish (M.A.). Her research adopts an interdisciplinary, sociocritical-Bakhtinian, and decolonial perspective. She has published articles in international peer-reviewed journals and has also edited/co-edited volumes related to Latin American Studies, such as, with Saúl Sosnowski, Re-interpreting Southern Cone Memories, JILAR, vol. 28. no. 1 (2022), with Miguel Rojas-Sotelo, Manifesting Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 47.3 (2022), and, with Lauren Beck, Resistance and Transformation in the Globalized South: A Collective Approach to Decolonization” RCEH, vol. 46, no. 1 (forthcoming, 2022). Dr. Fernández is fond of cocreating multicultural bridges and developing a sense of learning community to reflect upon and cope with social injustice and “minorities”. You can contact Ana at afernandez@mta.ca.
Grace Gomashie, Ph.D.
Grace is a post-doctoral research fellow at the CEMVC, responsible for research in equity and diversity and researcher training. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario in 2020, and her research focuses on the language vitality of Indigenous languages in multilingual contexts. Her peer-reviewed publications include “Bilingual youth’s language choices and attitudes towards Nahuatl in Santiago Tlaxco, Mexico” (Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2020), “Kanien’keha/Mohawk Indigenous Language Revitalization Efforts in Canada” (McGill Journal of Education, 2019) and “Language Vitality of Spanish in Equatorial Guinea: Language Use and Attitudes” (Humanities, 2019).
Ailén Cruz, Ph.D.
Ailén is a post-doctoral researcher at the CEMVC who received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2020. She previously worked as an Assistant Professor at the Australian National University, where she taught literature and translation. Her main research stream focuses on the evolution of the bestiary genre from its medieval origins to contemporary Hispanic literature (book forthcoming with McGill-Queen’s University Press). Her peer-reviewed publications include “Nicolás Guillén’s El gran zoo and his Biopolitical Legacy in Three Contemporary Bestiaries” (Hispania, 2022) and “Roque Larraquy’s Informe sobre ectoplasma animal in English Translation” (The AALITRA Review, 2023). She is also interested in questions of the uncanny in Latin American literature, and has published on this matter in Romance Notes. For the latest on her research, you can visit her ORCid.
Graduate Student Researchers
Samantha Ruckenstein
Samantha Ruckenstein is a Digital Humanities Scholar at the CEMVC. She is currently a PhD candidate in Hispanic Studies at McGill University, having completed her Master's in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures with a specialization in Medieval studies at the University of Toronto, in addition to her Undergraduate degree in Hispanic Studies at Queen's University. Samantha is the assistant to the Secretary for the Canadian Association of Hispanists and is a TA and course lecturer at McGill University. Samantha loves working with the CEMVC and increasing the presence of visual culture in academia. Her research interests include: Medieval and Contemporary Iberian Literature, Transatlantic Spanish Studies, Feminist theory, Queer theory, Disability studies, Minority studies, Jewish studies, and Spanish law. For more information visit samanthapenina.com.
Justin Yoston
Justin Yoston began his involvement with the CEMVC as a metadata research assistant in 2018, and he currently serves as research supervisor for the Centre. In this capacity, he oversees a team of researchers in compiling and documenting image sets for the repository. In addition to his role at the CEMVC, he also contributes to business strategy and web design at Metafy (Dr. Beck’s start-up company) and maintains employment as an analyst in the private sector.
Justin completed his Bachelor of Arts degree at Mount Allison University (Hons. Philosophy, Min. Psychology), during which time he served as a teaching assistant. He spends his spare time writing poetry & fiction, playing musical instruments, working on home automation, and hanging out with his chihuahua, Brutus.
Ashley Morford
Ashley Caranto Morford is a Pinay-British scholar-activist and SSHRC-funded PhD candidate in English at the University of Toronto. Her work is accountable to and in relationship with Indigenous studies, Pilipinx/a/o studies, anti-colonial methods and praxis, and digital humanities. Along with her work at the Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture, Ashley is the research lead for the SSHRC-funded #DecolonizingDigital Twitter project, which runs out of Dr. Jeffrey Ansloos’ Indigenous Life Promotion and Social Action Network labs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. She is co-editing a forthcoming anthology (through Wilfrid Laurier University Press) on Twitter as an Indigenous territory with Dr. Jeffrey Ansloos and Dr. David Gaertner. Ashley is also a co-founder of Pedagogy of the Digitally Oppressed, a digital humanities partnership committed to anti-colonial digital research and pedagogy, with Arun Jacob and Dr. Kush Patel. To learn more about Pedagogy of the Digitally Oppressed, click here.
Asil Naqvi
I am currently a PhD student at the NICHE (Knowledge Intensive Computing for Healthcare Enterprises) Research Group at Dalhousie University. Previously, I was a teaching assistant for 2 years at the Dalhousie University for CSCI 2141. My master’s thesis, defended in April 2020 was on the prediction outcome of the kidney transplant patients using machine learning methods. The study was carried out using a high dimensional dataset of kidney transplants at Dalhousie University. My research interests lie at the crossroads of data mining, machine learning based decision support systems for clinical and healthcare settings.
Martha Lorena Rojas Castañeda
Bachelor in Liberal Arts with a focus on Cultural Anthropology. Her interests in art and culture led her to work in various cultural and artistic projects in her home city Quito. Lorena recently finished her master's degree in Hispanic Studies at Western University with a thesis about the Chilean singer Violeta Parra. Currently, she works as a graduate teaching assistant at Western teaching a beginners Spanish course. She also works as research assistant for professor Lauren Beck with a project about equality, diversity and inclusion in western visual culture over the last five hundred years. She will continue studying her Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies at Western with an investigation about female voices in Latin American cinema. Lorena is interested in cultural, gender and intermedial studies.
CEMVC Interns
Alicia Allen
Alicia Allen is a third-year student at Mount Allison University with plans on receiving an Honours in Visual and Material Cultural Studies with a Minor in English Literature. When a social media and metadata research internship became available at the CEMVC, Alicia applied immediately, excited for such an opportunity. Her passion for graphic design is evident and she is excited to enhance her skills and create a professional portfolio for the future. Alicia thrives in settings where she can be connected to her peers. For example, she spends her free time as Co-President of the MTA Creative Writing Society and Co-President of the MTA VMCS Society. She likes to draw, read, and write, with dreams of becoming an author and an academic. After her undergraduate degree at Mount Allison, Alicia plans on attending grad school, pursuing a career in intercultural communications.
Charmi Pastagiya
Charmi Pastagiya, currently in her third year at Mount Allison University, aims to complete her bachelor’s degree in psychology. Upon discovering an internship opportunity in social media and metadata research at CEMVC, she promptly applied, eager for the chance it presented. In today's context, social media serves as a prominent platform for socializing, and Charmi passionate about social psychology, is intrigued by how this internship can offer insights to improve human engagement in passive interactions. Aside from her academic pursuits, Charmi enjoys cooking, reading, and swimming; she wishes to become a researcher so after her undergraduate studies at Mount Allison, she envisions gaining further knowledge with master's and PhD degrees.
Former Researchers
Former Undergraduate Researchers
Shelby Carson
Shelby is a 2021 graduating student from Mount Allison University with a major in history and a minor in German and classical studies. Her historical areas of interest vary from the Hellenistic period to the Medieval era. Outside of German language courses, she has also enjoyed taking German literature courses. She has been a metadata assistant for the CEMVC since her second year at Mount Allison, primarily with the responsibilities of obtaining data for the collections. In particular, she has helped obtain metadata for the Ovid, Early Modern Women, and Latin American Chronicles collections. She will be working for the CEMVC over the summer to ensure quality and consistency throughout the collections. Shelby will then be attending the University of Toronto's Masters of Information program with a concentration in Archives in the fall.
Elizabeth March
Elizabeth completed her Bachelor of Arts at Mount Allison University with Honours in History and a minor in Classical Studies in May 2021. She wrote her Honours thesis on how the Renaissance author, Francesco Petrarca, combined classical and Christian influences in his writings about his muse, Laura. She began working with the CEMVC in the fall of 2019, researching illustrated editions of fictional texts, including Gulliver’s Travels, the works of the Brontë sisters, and Jane Austen’s novels. Elizabeth will continue her studies in September 2021 at Carleton University, where she will undertake an MA in History. In September 2022 she will attend the University of Buckingham in England, where she will complete an MA in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors. Elizabeth’s research interests include: the social history of Early Modern England and depictions of history on film.
Désirée Worrall-Bélanger
Désirée Worrall-Bélanger will be going into her second year at Mount Allison University in the Fall of 2021. Planning to obtain an Honours in English and a Major in History, when given the opportunity to work on analyzing classical literature and others, Desiree applied for the position and began her work with the CEMVC in October 2020. Striving to become a chief editor in a publishing house, Desiree spends most of her free time reading both fantasy and historical romance, as well as all classic literature. Desiree is also a strong lover of learning new cultures and languages. Speaking three languages fluently, such being: French (being her native language), English, and Ancient Greek, Desiree hopes to learn a new language every year and is currently learning Korean over the summer.
Jonah Walker-Sherman
Jonah is entering his fourth year of his Bachelor of Arts degree in the Fall and hoping to complete his double major in Philosophy and Psychology by the end of the Winter 2022 term. His philosophical areas of interest range from ancient philosophy to the philosophy of science, and certain areas of logic, while his psychological interests center around biopsychology, language, and palliative care. He began working with CEMVC in the Fall of 2020, finding and meta tagging illustrations from texts of Cervantes' 'Vida y hechos del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha' and hasn't stopped since. In addition to his work with the CEMVC he is also working as a research assistant for Professor Jane Dryden and Assistant Professor Andrew Inkpen in a project relating to the recent explosion of biological research pertaining to the human microbiome. In the upcoming Fall 2021 term, he will be working as a teacher's assistant for an introductory course on Plato's Republic.
Emily Shaw
Emily Shaw (She/Her) is a graduate of Mount Allison University, having completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2021 with a minor in Visual Communication and Culture, and a certificate in visual literacy and culture. She is an interdisciplinary artist and humourist, exploring the female gothic, queer failure, and food anthropology through sculpture, textiles, performance, photography, and audio/video work. Shaw joined the CEMVC in May, working to assist Dr. Beck in her research in representation of women & water in heraldry of the Americas. Shaw will be spending the next year working on her practice and brushing up on her cultural studies. She’s aiming for a master’s in Fine Arts or in Cultural Studies in the next couple years.