Arts Student Showcase on Digital & Computational Scholarship

THE BUTTERFLY PETROGLYPH: An attempt at decipherment of Indigenous petroglyphs that may provide insights into centuries-old customs, their worldview and views on astronomy. The Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest are more closely related to the makers of these Great Basin petroglyphs, than even to the Indigenous peoples North of British Columbia. This means the signs and symbols seen here incised into this boulder, are ancestral messages. These sublime petroglyphs are camouflaged by lichens that grow on the rock face. The location is extremely remote, reached after a three hour walk from the nearest road. The boulder is also positioned by Fate, so that it is not seen by the casual passerby or hunter. Previous surveys by hegemonic archaeologists have reported that; "There were no petroglyphs found in the area." My student-research into these Indigenous petroglyphs, include attempts at decipherment and conjectures about a group of incised "dots" that surround the realistic depiction of a butterfly. On measuring the distance between several dots, I suspect the constellation of The Big Dipper. I also speculate that a human-made hole seen at the top of the boulder, supported a wooden pole that served an ancient wickiup brush hut, allowing the petroglyph rock face to serve as the inner wall of a winter dwelling. A reddish hue may be plant residue from centuries of this use. I used advanced motion picture visual effects software, to alter the gamma of each part of the main photographic image, focusing on specific Indigenous petroglyph symbols; one at a time. I consulted vintage glyph encyclopedias and interviewed Canada's foremost expert on the lichens that still grow in and around the petroglyph symbols, lichenologist and author, Bruce McCune. I'm thrilled and deeply honoured to have been invited to share these images, and my student research and speculations with you. My hope is that Indigenous scholars at UBC may be willing to share their insights with me and help me in my journey to a greater understanding. My goal was to unravel enough of these fascinating puzzles, to see through a window into another time.

Tackling the Deforestation Crisis: Financial, Technological, and Enforcement Solutions Deforestation poses threats to both climate change and biodiversity loss. In this study, we examine this issue from three different, computationally intensive perspectives. From a prevention standpoint, we examine the cause-and-effect relationships between rural credit and deforestation. We analyze Mapbiomas land-use change data derived from satellite imagery and cross-reference these with loan records from the Central Bank of Brazil and the boundaries of more than six million rural properties across the country. To accomplish this task, we used the Google Earth Engine API via R with the RGEE library. From a direct-intervention perspective, we use the Scikit-learn Python machine-learning library to predict the final extent of each deforestation event, aiming to inform environmental agencies which events should be prioritized for field inspection. Finally, what should be done once the damage has been done? In this final approach, we will examine the most appropriate restoration methods for each biome, as revealed by satellite imagery. To achieve this, we will use the LandTrendr JavaScript module. The combination of these three approaches (prevention – intervention – restoration) can ultimately help shape policies that improve climate change mitigation actions worldwide. Visit the site: https://osf.io/vwfpz/

Summarizing, Outlining, Drafting, Thinking: Student Understandings of AI Policies Due to the wide range of tools available, instructors now face the challenge of developing activities that allow students to engage critically with course materials while also limiting a student's ability to completely outsource their critical thinking. Already at UBC we have seen a wide variety of approaches to this, with some professors banning AI entirely, others requiring students cite AI's contributions as though it were an academic source, and others leaving students in the dark regarding what constitutes unethical AI, leading to students being unsure of how to perceive or implement these tools. This project seeks to examine this question of AI policy and ethics more closely, specifically when it comes to how these policies influence student perception and implementation of Generative AI. By distributing surveys discussing policy and AI usage at the beginning and end of a course, we conduct a comparative analysis, tracking the degree to which the experience in the classroom impacts a student's perception of Generative AI, their understanding of course policies, and what they perceive as ethical use. These surveys allow us to systematically track evolving perceptions of AI, the effectiveness of its policies, and students understanding of the tools' use cases at both the individual and class level, thereby considering the ethics of AI, potential academic frameworks, and how AI tools have impacted definition of critical thinking.

Indigenous Languages Typing Game During the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032), proclaimed by UNESCO, the rapid expansion of digital technologies has made it increasingly urgent to integrate Indigenous and minoritized languages into digital infrastructures to prevent further marginalization and ensure their visibility and vitality. Within this context, the CoDHerS Indigenous Languages Typing Game initiative is a student-led digital humanities project developed at the Collaborative Digital Heritage Studio (CoDHerS), a multimedia production, exhibition, and archiving studio, directed by Dr. Aynur Kadir. The project created by Kamila (UX & Digital Strategy Lead), Manas (Software Engineering Lead), and Okereke Anyim (Library and Archive Specialist), the project combines interactive design, participatory development, and culturally grounded storytelling to support language revitalization. The initiative emerged from a question asked by a five-year-old Uyghur child in diaspora: 'Why don't we have a typing game in Uyghur?' This question revealed a broader infrastructural gap. While dominant languages benefit from gamified platforms such as Duolingo, Indigenous and minoritized languages often lack accessible digital learning tools. In response, CoDHerS is developing scalable web-based typing games that strengthen mother-tongue literacy, increase typing fluency in non-dominant scripts, support intergenerational language transmission, and expand Indigenous languages into interactive digital environments. By transforming typing practice into narrative, sound, and play, the project positions digital design as a form of linguistic empowerment, ensuring that ancestral languages remain present within the technological futures being built today.

Making Fragments, Finding Fragments: Queer Comics Across Canada Noreen Stevens, like many queer cartoonists working in Canada in the 1980s and 90s, published comic strips in dozens of publications across Canada and the US. Published in zines and small press periodicals, this ephemeral material has been archived sporadically, mostly in specialized archives. This project visualizes how Stevens's publications traveled in three stages: (1) where they were written, (2) where they were distributed, and (3) where they ended up. By mapping this data, the project attempts to reconstruct the complicated networks of international collaboration in queer communities before the growth of the internet. While the project begins with Stevens's oeuvre, particularly her long running strip, The Chosen Family, the long-term goal of the project is to expand the map to include other cartoonists working at the time. In the presentation, I hope to demonstrate the early stages of visualizing data using Tableau.

Detecting Speech Deepfakes through Phoneme-Aware Phase Variance Exploring the intersection of linguistics and audio security, this project maps the fundamental differences between bonafide (human) and synthetic (generated) speech production. Our goal is to identify phonetic areas where generative models are most susceptible to detection. By analyzing these production gaps, we can provide a deeper understanding of synthesis technologies and how they compare to the intricacies of human vocalization. We focus on production levels such as fricatives (sounds like 's'), plosives (sounds like 'p'), and vowels, where generated speech often leaves subtle traces of its artificial origin. In an era where rapidly evolving synthesis tools pose significant risks like fraud and impersonation, this approach offers a framework for enhancing the robustness of defensive models. Ultimately, the goal is to shift audio authentication away from purely chasing accuracy metrics and toward a comprehensive understanding of speech production to better safeguard digital interactions, especially for low-resource languages.

Laura K. Nelson is an Associate Professor of Sociology whose research examines how collective identities form, change, and gain meaning in public life. Her work focuses on language and discourse—how people describe themselves, their communities, and their political or cultural commitments—and how these descriptions shape social action. To study these processes, she combines sociological theory with computational approaches to analyzing text. Her research uses tools such as natural language processing, machine learning, and, increasingly, generative AI to study large collections of documents, from online discussions to organizational materials and public statements. These methods make it possible to trace patterns in language that would be difficult to observe through close reading alone. Recently, she has been exploring the opportunities and challenges that large language models present for social research. While these systems offer powerful new ways to analyze and interpret textual data, they also raise methodological and ethical questions about how scholars should use AI to study social life. Her current work examines how these tools can be integrated into sociological research while maintaining transparency, interpretability, and strong connections to qualitative inquiry.

Anna Dawczyk (Ph.D.) is a Lecturer in the Sociology Department where she teaches courses in the Family Studies minor including Family Context of Human Development (FMST 210) and Relationship Development (FMST 314). Dr Dawczyk also teaches Research Methods (SOCI 217) and Social Statistics (SOCI 328). She is the PI on a SoTL SEED funded project titled, AI integration in teaching: Examining instructors’ use, perceptions, and pedagogical considerations is under way. This research is addressing a critical gap in knowledge as instructors’ perspectives on AI use (or non-use) in their teaching practices and the pedagogical implications remain strikingly underexamined. The results of this mixed method research will identify emerging practices as this work is essential for developing evidence-based, ethical guidelines that support effective and equitable instructor use of AI in higher education.

Bergmann is the Canada Research Chair in GIS, Geospatial Big Data and Digital Geohumanities and an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography. He holds a B.Sc. in Physics from Duke University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Minnesota. Before joining UBC Geography, he previously held a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington.