Highlights from DiSA’s Inaugural Faculty of Arts Graduate Student Showcase at UBC
Report by Helen Wu
Have you ever exchanged digital research tips with a friend and walked away inspired? On April 11, 2025, the Digital Scholarship in Arts (DiSA) team at the University of British Columbia offered that very opportunity—on a much larger scale. The Arts Graduate Student Showcase on Digital and Computational Scholarship brought together 13 UBC graduate research projects to present their research, foster dialogue, and build an informal, supportive community across disciplines.
Held in a vibrant atmosphere, the event featured multiple rounds of rapid-fire five-minute presentations, where students and faculty from across the Faculty of Arts got quick insights into each project’s focus and digital methodology. Outside the main presentation room, a “gallery wall” in the Research Commons on the fifth floor of the Koerner Library displayed posters dedicated to each project, rivaled the sunny view. The posters served as complements to the brief presentations, drawing people together during breaks to make connections and allowing for a deeper dive into the research. The energy was palpable—conversations sparked naturally; mini-discussions formed around the collegial space, creating a dynamic and welcoming learning environment. 
“This gathering was so inspiring at so many levels: the talented leadership, the engaged students, the provocative research,” said Dr. Mary Chapman. “I’m so glad I attended and so excited about the wonderful community that DiSA and the Centre for Computational Social Science have created.”
Dr. Ramón Antonio Victoriano-Martinez, Assistant Professor of Spanish viewing the gallery wall poster display.
With most presenters being graduate students engaged in digital and computational methodologies, the showcase welcomed scholars at every stage, from those just beginning their academic research to those with advanced projects and expertise in digital methods, and every stage in between. The event encouraged reciprocal learning, community building, and collaboration.
One such early-stage researcher was Daniel Orizaga Doguim, whose project aims to compile and curate materials on the Spanish politician Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1600–1659). Explaining that his research was still in early stages, Doguim asked for advice on the next steps. During the post-presentation networking session, he engaged in a thoughtful exchange with DiSA’s Digital Projects Specialist, Neil Aitken, discussing the trajectory of academic research with digital tools and potential career paths after graduate school.
The range of research topics—spanning economics, literature, visual arts, sociology, and more—demonstrated the versatility of digital scholarship. Interestingly, recurring themes such as computational analysis with data visualization, geospatial analysis, and textual analysis highlighted the cross-disciplinary connections that digital tools have in common.
Bruno Esposito, a PhD candidate in Economics, showcased his research findings on the disparate outcomes for suspended and non-suspended workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data analysis and visualization are closely integrated in economic research (as Dr. Henry Siu mentioned in his feature interview) and help scholars in other social science disciplines. Sociology PhD student Mark Shakespear presented a stunning dandelion-shaped discourse network chart that visualized five dominant themes at UN COP conferences over 28 years. Though different in subject, both projects used visualization to distill complex data into digestible insights.
Bruno’s project was not the only one focused on Spanish-language texts. The event unintentionally showcased several projects from different departments, such as Sarah Revilla-Sanchez’s analysis of 17th-century “novellas” written by Spanish women (FHIS) and Solange Adum Abdala’s visual arts project based on a Spanish version of landscape photograph collection (AHVA). This indicates that cross-disciplinary events like this can foster new communities of practice that transcend traditional disciplinary frameworks in the arts, while also building human connections and reimagining machine-human relationships—as Dean Christiane Hoppmann noted in her opening remarks.
In the realm of textual analysis, Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) practices took center stage. Many of the presenters are assisting Mary Chapman with the Winnifred Eaton Archive using TEI, encoding and annotating texts in different styles and forms. Leean Wu was one of them; in her brilliant talk, she addressed the limitations of existing TEI methods in encoding cinematic texts as opposed to traditional theatrical texts, as well as the research team’s solution to meet the challenges—innovating and developing their own conventions for the project. As an advanced undergraduate participating in the event, she showed the importance of teaching digital methods to students in their early years of study.
Sydney Lines, a key member of the Adaptive TEI Network, introduced another tool: CollectionBuilder. Self-taught in its use, Lines noted the lack of institutional support for learning open-access digital tools—something DiSA aims to remedy through various events and features. Events like this one not only support scholarly work but also empower students to share resources and strategies beyond departmental silos.
Mahwish Zafar from Asian Studies envisions a future where “AI is not stronger, but wiser.” In discussing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), she emphasized the importance of embedding human experience and intelligence—particularly our capacity for problem-solving in the face of uncertainty—into the development of machine learning. The use of manipulated images also appeared in other students’ visual art projects, such as Anneke Dresselhuis’s interdisciplinary work on anthropogenic climate destruction and coloniality. By taking screenshots of open-pit mines on Google Maps, she was able to visualize contested landscapes.
Cal Smith, PhD program in English Language and Literatures during his lighting presentation; “What Might StoryMaps Leave Out?: Working on ‘The Achuen Grace Amoy and the Chinese Magicians’ StoryMaps”
Yet, participants remained mindful of the limitations of digital tools. Cal Smith, (pictured above) from English Language and Literature, shared how StoryMap’s linearity failed to capture the lingering impact of itinerant Chinese magicians like Achuen Grace Amoy after their split. His argument suggested the need for critical thinking when using digital mapping tools and critical insights of how tech tools transmit information as ultimately, the showcase affirmed that digital scholarship isn’t about replacing traditional research methods—it’s about enhancing them while understanding their mechanics and resulting limits.
With snacks, conversations, and curiosity, DiSA’s inaugural graduate showcase offered a lively, inclusive space for learning, networking, and growing together in the digital age. As DiSA Director Christine D’Onofrio said: “Today’s event proved that graduate students are at the forefront of expanding research methods, pushing boundaries as vanguards of Academic pursuits. Their passion towards the content, inventive approaches and incisive critiques doesn’t just improve our frameworks, it reimagines what is possible.”