About: People

Principal Investigator: Professor David Gauntlett, University of Westminster.

Co-Investigators: Professor Jeanette Steemers, Dr Paul Dwyer, and Dr Anastasia Kavada, University of Westminster.
Professor Claire Warwick and Dr Melissa Terras, University College London.

Network Co-ordinator: Didem Ozkul.

Lead partners: Tate, The British Library, MuseumNext.

David Gauntlett David Gauntlett is Professor of Media and Communications, and Co-Director of the Communications and Media Research Institute, at the University of Westminster. His teaching and research concerns people’s use of media in their everyday lives, with a particular focus on creative uses of digital media. He is the author of several books, including Creative Explorations (2007) and Making is Connecting: The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0 (2011). He has made several popular YouTube videos, and produces the website about media and identities, Theory.org.uk. He has conducted collaborative research with a number of the world’s leading creative organisations, including the BBC, Lego, and Tate.
Paul Dwyer Paul Dwyer is Course Leader MA International Media Business, University of Westminster. He is currently on the steering group of Radio Connected, an industry R&D consortium developing multiplatform radio applications, and is a consultant to television production companies and broadcasters. Previously Paul was Head of Development in the BBC’s Documentaries Department, developing new TV and multiplatform content for all genres of factual programming. He spent 13 years at the BBC as an award winning TV producer and director. Paul gained his PhD from Imperial College, University of London, where his research was a management study of pirate radio.
Jeanette Steemers Jeanette Steemers is Professor of Media and Communications, and Co-Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute, at the University of Westminster. Her books include Regaining the Initiative for Public Service Media (ed., 2012 with G. Lowe); Creating Preschool Television: A Story of Commerce, Creativity and Curriculum  (2010), Selling Television: British Television in the Global Marketplace (2004), European Television Industries (2005, with P. Iosifidis and M. Wheeler), Changing Channels: The Prospect for Television in a Digital Age (ed., 1998). She has an industry background having worked as an analyst for CIT Research and research manager at children’s producer HIT Entertainment.
Anastasia Kavada Anastasia Kavada is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Westminster. Her research concerns the use of new communication technologies, such as email lists and social media, by protest movements and advocacy groups. Anastasia’s research interests focus on the links between online tools and decentralized organizing practices, democratic decision-making, and the development of solidarity and a sense of common identity among participants in collective action. Her work has appeared in a variety of edited books and academic journals, including Media, Culture & Society, the International Journal of E-Politics, and Information, Communication & Society.
Didem Ozkul Didem Ozkul is a PhD candidate at the Communications and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster. She started the PhD programme at CAMRI in September 2010. Before starting her PhD, she received her MA degree in Media and Visual Studies at Bilkent University, Turkey, where she analysed image-spectator interaction in immersive digital platforms. Her current research concerns people’s use of mobile communication technologies in augmented urban spaces, particularly focusing on spatial perception. For her research she engages in creative methodologies (map drawing) in order to explore and visualise the transformations in sense of place and whether mobile media has an affect on those transformations. Details about her study can be found at www.mobilenodes.co.uk.
Claire Warwick Claire Warwick is Professor of Digital Humanities and Head of the Department of Information Studies at University College London; Director of the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities; and Vice-Dean for Research for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She is the author of Digital Humanities in Practice (with Melissa Terras & Julianne Nyhan, 2012). She is particularly interested in the way that digital resources are used in the humanities and cultural heritage, and the use of social media in these areas. She is Principal Investigator of the QRator project, associate director of LinkSphere, and co-investigator of the Digital Humanities Open Education Resources Project.
Melissa Terras Melissa Terras is Reader in Electronic Communication in the Department of Information Studies at University College London, and Deputy Director of UCL Centre for Digital Humanities. Her books include Digital Images for the Information Professional (2008) and Digital Humanities in Practice (with Melissa Terras & Julianne Nyhan, 2012). Her research interests involve applying computational technologies to Humanities problems, with research areas that span Digital Humanities, Digitization and Digital Imaging, Image Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Palaeography, Knowledge Elicitation, and Internet Technologies.
Nora McGregor Nora McGregor is a Digital Curator in the Digital Scholarship department of the British Library. Her work explores how new technologies are shaping our research processes and environments in the 21st century and how that in turn will impact future British Library service provision. She recently led the exhibition Growing Knowledge: The Evolution of Research. Her current projects focus on supporting curatorial staff across the library as well as researchers to integrate and leverage digital tools and collections in their daily practice.
John Stack John Stack is Head of Tate Online, which sits within Tate’s Audiences and Media division. Working closely with colleagues across the organisation, he is responsible for setting and delivering Tate’s web strategy. Tate Online is now the UK’s number two arts website, attracting 1.8 million visitors each month, and has grown to over 420,000 pages. Following a two-year project, the site was relaunched in early 2012. John was previously Editor of contemporary art books series at Phaidon Press.
Jim Richardson Jim Richardson is the founder of MuseumNext, Europe’s big conference on social and digital media for the museum sector. In 2000 he founded Sumo, a leading creative agency with an international reputation for promoting the arts through innovative marketing campaigns. Jim has worked with the directors and marketing teams of cultural organisations across the UK. As a speaker and author, Jim has shared his vision of evolving arts audiences – people who want to step beyond being treated as spectators and wish to actively engage with cultural organisations through their venue, website and brand. Over the past two years Jim has spoken at more than twenty conferences in six countries and has contributed to publications including The Art Newspaper, Arts Professional, Museums Journal, Museum Practice, Museum ID and Heritage 365 magazine.