Work with thought leaders and academic experts in literature literary theory

s a Professor of History at the University of Colorado and a digital humanities innovator, I specialize in medieval and early modern history, focusing on the dynamic interplay of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures. My academic journey, rooted in a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, is dedicated to exploring the rich complexities of Spain, Iberia, and the [Global Middle Ages](https://grants.uccs.edu/igma/). Yet, it is grounded in industry and government, based on my prior almost decade long career in research forecasting at the Institute for the Future and governmental management consultant and strategic planning. My current work is distinguished by my innovative use of virtual reality, MOOCs, big data, and AI in historical manuscript studies, aiming to transform our approach to teaching, research, and knowledge creation. My career and life is characterized by a global scope, delving into the histories of regions like Spain, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Germany, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Mexico, and South America. This includes prior residence in Spain, Bolivia, and South America, in addition to my native United States (TX, PA, CA, CO). This broad perspective enriches my research and teaching, allowing me to weave diverse historical narratives. A pivotal aspect of my work is my involvement with over 70,000 citizen scholars via MOOCs, university students, high school students, and the general public. This includes leading the “Immersive Global Middle Ages” project, which uses advanced digital tools to bring historical narratives to life. In December 2023, I launched a [Coursera.org Specialization titled “Personal Journeys: Identity, Motivation, and Resilience.”](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/identity-motivation-resilience) This three-course series explores the Renaissance’s cultural and intellectual legacy and modern global perspectives, focusing on self-discovery, motivation, and overcoming societal challenges. The courses offer an intellectual tapestry designed to foster resilience and growth in both personal and professional spheres. Central to my vision for future research and education is training AI as a “[collaborative AI humanist and scholar](https://urraca-ai.org/),” an endeavor that transcends academic research to pioneer new forms of human-AI collaboration. This initiative is about deepening our collective understanding of history’s longue durée through the lens of innovative technology.

Parvaneh Khosravi Zadeh is an Iranian linguist and academic. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Tehran in 2006. Prior to that, she obtained her MA in Linguistics from Islamic Azad University, Tehran. She also holds a BA in English Translation from Allameh Tabatabaei University. Dr. Khosravi Zadeh has been working as an Assistant Professor at Sharif University of Technology. She has published numerous articles in prestigious linguistic journals and presented her research at various international conferences. Her areas of expertise include syntax, semantics, computational linguistics, and language acquisition. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Khosravi Zadeh is also involved in community outreach programs, where she promotes multilingualism and cultural diversity. She is passionate about promoting linguistic diversity and understanding among different cultures. Dr. Khosravi Zadeh is highly respected in the field of linguistics and has received numerous awards for her research and contributions to the field. She continues to actively research and teach in her field, and is dedicated to making a positive impact on the world through her work.

Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer works on Roman imperial literature, the history of rhetoric and philosophy, and on the reception of the western classical tradition in contemporary China.  She is the author of 5 books on the ancient novel, Neronian literature, political theatricality, and Stoic philosophy, the most recent of which is Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy, and the Figural (Winner of the 2016 Goodwin Award of Merit).  She has also edited or co-edited 7 wide-ranging essay collections (two of them Cambridge Companions) and the “Seneca in Translation” series from the University of Chicago. Bartsch’s new translation of Vergil’s Aeneid was released from Random House in 2021; in 2022, she is publishing a monograph on the contemporary Chinese reception of ancient Greek political philosophy.  Bartsch has been a Guggenheim fellow, edits the journal KNOW, and has held visiting scholar positions in St. Andrews, Taipei, and Rome. Starting in academic year 2015, she has led a university-wide initiative to explore the historical and social contexts in which knowledge is created, legitimized, and circulated.

James C. Kaufman is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. He has written or edited more than 50 books. These include: the recently published *The Creativity Advantage* (Cambridge); the forthcoming *Lessons in Creativity from Musical Theatre Characters* (with Dana P. Rowe; Routledge); two editions of *Cambridge Handbook of Creativity* (with Robert J. Sternberg) and five other Cambridge Handbooks; two editions of *Creativity 101* (Springer); and a book on terrible baseball pitchers with his father and a book on pseudoscience with his wife. James has developed many theories, most notably the Four C’s (with Ron Beghetto). He has developed several self-report measures of creativity and is currently focusing on positive outcomes of creativity. James has won many awards, including Mensa’s research award, the Torrance Award from the National Association for Gifted Children, the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children’s International Creativity Award, and APA’s Berlyne, Arnheim, and Farnsworth awards. He co-founded two major journals, *Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts* and *Psychology of Popular Media Culture* and is the current Senior Associate Editor for *Creativity Research Journal*. He has tested Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s creativity on CNN; written the book and lyrics to the musical *Discovering Magenta* (which played NYC and has a cast album); and appeared onscreen, complete with white lab coat, in the comic book documentary *Independents*.

[Vanessa Patrick, PhD.](https://www.vanessapatrick.net/ "https://www.vanessapatrick.net/") is the Associate Dean for Research, Executive Director of Doctoral Programs (PhD and DBA), a Bauer Professor of Marketing and lead faculty of the Executive Women in Leadership Program at the Bauer School of Business at the University of Houston.   She has been recognized with a number of awards for both scholarship and teaching, including the LeRoy and Lucille Melcher Faculty Excellence award from the Bauer College of Business for Research Excellence (2011), Service Excellence (2016) and Teaching Excellence (2018). In 2012, she was named one of the top 50 most productive marketing scholars worldwide by the DocSig of the American Marketing Association. She was appointed as a Fulbright Specialist (2019-24) by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. She served in this role by visiting the Institut Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia in November 2022.   She is a regular speaker at both academic and practitioner conferences, including the Association of Consumer Research Conference, the Society of Consumer Psychology conference, the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce annual conference, the NAWMBA Annual Gender Diversity Conference and the UH Women of Color Coalition.   She is a prominent scholar in her field and serves on editorial and policy boards of leading academic journals. She is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and the Journal of Marketing. She is the author of a new book The Power of Saying No: The New Science of How to Say No that Puts you in charge of your Life. Visit her at [vanessapatrick.net.](https://www.vanessapatrick.net/ "https://www.vanessapatrick.net/")

Dr. Jenna Drenten is an associate professor of marketing in the Quinlan School of Business where she studies *digital consumer culture*: the sociocultural role of social media platforms in everyday consumer life. Her research explains how digital culture—from social media algorithms to the influencer attention economy—structures social and cultural consumption ideologies and how consumers’ lived experiences are mediated, translated, and commodified through digital culture. This includes multiple facets of digital consumer culture—from individual consumer behavior to systemic macro-level structures—across a range of social media platforms. Jenna is an expert in the field of marketing on qualitative social media research methods. Jenna’s work has been published in leading academic journals such as *Journal of Consumer Research*, *Journal of Advertising*, and *New Media & Society*, and her expertise has been featured extensively in media outlets including *The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times,* and *The Washington Post*. For more information, go to [www.jennadrenten.com](http://www.jennadrenten.com/). Jenna serves as an associate editor for the *Journal of Advertising Research*, as the communications chair for GENMAC: Gender, Markets, and Consumers, and as an associate board member for the Chicago Public Library Foundation. In the Quinlan School of Business, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in marketing, integrated marketing communications, social media marketing, and brand storytelling. Before pursuing her Ph.D., Jenna worked in corporate communications at BMW Manufacturing Co. in Greer, SC and worked in special events and marketing at Minyanville Media, Inc., an Emmy-Award winning online financial publishing company in New York City.

Anne Jobin is a Swiss sociologist and researcher who specializes in the areas of science, technology, and society (STS). She holds a Doctor of Social Sciences from Université de Lausanne, and has been a visiting research scholar at Tufts University and Cornell University. She is currently a researcher at the (ETH) and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

María Elena Placencia is Professor of Linguistics and Spanish.  She joined Birkbeck in 1995 and teaches in the areas of (Spanish) Pragmatics,  (Digital) Discourse Analysis as well as Spanish as a foreign language. She has performed different administrative roles, including that of Head of Department/Assistant Dean, and is currently Programme Director of various undergraduate programmes within the Department of Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics. Her current research is in the areas of variational pragmatics, with a focus on e-service encounters, and digital discourse analysis, with a focus on social media interaction. Her latest project examines the language of exclusion on Twitter in the context of interethnic interaction. Past projects have looked at a range of topics including, among others, complimenting behaviour in social media, the discourse of bargaining in e-commerce, rapport management and small talk in service encounters, (im)politeness in familial contexts, addressing behaviour and discursive racism. María Elena has published extensively on these topics.

Carlos obtained his PhD in Engineering Sciences with concentration in AI/ML from Tec de Monterrey. He worked as a Research Assistant at Harvard. Research Scientist at Amazon, Last Mile Delivery Technology Team, where he developed and applied algorithms to speed up customer delivery times and provide new innovations to customers. Before joining Amazon, Carlos worked for General Motors (GM) as a Senior Researcher at the Manufacturing Systems Research Lab. He conducted research in Industry 4.0 and Quality 4.0; applied and developed algorithms to drive manufacturing innovation. <br> Carlos is the author of the book “Machine Learning in Manufacturing: Quality 4.0 and the Zero Defects Vision”. His research work interest lies within the 99% percentile as compared with the cohort of researchers registered in the ResearchGate platform and it has been recognized as one of the most innovative and high impact research topics by the TecReview magazine. He was ranked in the top 3% in TEXATA, the Big Data Analytics World Championships. Carlos was recognized as the SHPE Star of Today by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). This award honors an engineer/scientist who has demonstrated outstanding technical excellence resulting in significant accomplishments. It also recognizes dedication, commitment, and selfless efforts to advance Hispanics in STEM careers. Carlos was in the Mexican national team of martial arts. Today he enjoys teaching his colleagues this sport. SHPE: https://www.shpe.org/events/nc2021/programs/star-awards TecReview: https://issuu.com/tecreview/docs/tec\_review-30 ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos\_Escobar31 Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3JfYEaUAAAAJ&hl=en

I am an Associate Professor of economics at Denison and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. Before settling at Denison in 2008, I taught at Simon’s Rock College of Bard (MA) and at Drew University (NJ) where I also directed the Wall Street Semester Program (NY). I have also held research affiliations with the Levy Economics Institute (NY), the Economic Research Forum (Egypt), the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (MA), and the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability (MO).

Arnold Raymond is a professor of English at Swansea University. He received his PhD in English from the University of Cambridge in 2001, and his AM in Celtic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University in 1997. He also holds a BA in English and American Studies from the University of East Anglia.

I currently work as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Trauma Resilience and Education Center of Greater Washington, DC. I approach mental health treatment from a trauma-informed lens and specialize in working with transgender, asexual, and LGBQ+ clients, and clients with outpatient eating disorder concerns. I specialize in research focusing on healthcare access for trans and nonbinary individuals, gender dysphoria, LGBTQ+ resilience, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ people during the COVID-19 pandemic. I received a Ph.D. counseling psychology and M.A. in psychology from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and previously received a BA in Psychology, a BS in mechanical engineering, and a MS in biomedical engineering, all from the University of Florida. Prior to starting the PhD program, I worked in the medical device industry as the Senior Manager of Product Commercialization in Research and Development at NovaBone Products.