Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface

Mark J.V. Olson is Associate Professor of the Practice of Visual & Media Studies in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University and a founding member of several arts and humanities initiatives at Duke that borrow from and innovate upon the “lab model” of the sciences:  the Digital Art History & Visual Culture Research Lab, the S-1: Speculative Sensation Lab, and, most recently, the et al lab (a nascent art|science lab co-directed with Nina Sherwood and Kristen Tapson and sponsored by Bass Connections).

In his research and teaching, Olson is committed to cultivating literacies in “critical making”—drawing on the critical and analytic repertoires of the theoretical and historical humanities while cultivating deep understanding and proficient practice at the intersection of the creative arts, computer science, electrical engineering, medicine, and the life sciences.

He is the former Director of New Media & Information Technologies for HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Sciences & Technology Advanced Collaboratory) and currently serves as Faculty Advisor for Technology at the Nasher Museum of Art. He received his MA and PhD in Communication Studies and graduate certificate in Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Paolo Mangiafico is the Scholarly Communications Strategist at Duke University, and member of ScholarWorks, a Center for Open Scholarship at Duke University Libraries. He is also Director of the Triangle Scholarly Communication Institute, a program funded by the Mellon Foundation that brings together leading thinkers and innovators from many disciplines and backgrounds to solve problems and develop initiatives that advance equity and access in scholarly communication.

In his role at Duke, Paolo works with librarians, technologists, faculty, students, and university leadership to plan and implement programs that promote ethical and equitable uses of research and publishing technologies, as well as greater reach and impact for scholarship in many forms, including work on open access to publications and data, licensing and copyright issues, ethical use of research metrics, and emerging platforms for publishing digital scholarship. His work focuses on how new technologies can be adapted to further the knowledge-sharing mission of research universities, and the intersection between social, economic, and technical systems.
 
Paolo previously served as Director of Digital Information Strategy in the Office of the Provost at Duke University, and has been a fellow in the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke, led an early digital library project called The Digital Scriptorium as well as Duke Libraries’ Web Services and Research & Development departments, and has served as a consultant for universities, university presses, and government agencies, and as a lecturer in information science and responsible conduct of research. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Dryad, a non-profit membership organization supporting a digital repository for research data, and on the advisory boards and steering committees of many other programs, including the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions, the Libraria collective, the Forum for Scholars and Publics, and DMPTool, among others. His volunteer civic work has included serving as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Durham County Library, being a tutor for the English for Speakers of Other Languages program at the Durham Literacy Center, and serving as a Guardian ad Litem, advocating on behalf of abused and neglected children through the Durham County courts and social services.