Podcast

I served as academic consultant and consulting producer for the hit podcast "Heaven's Gate," produced by Pineapple Street Media and Stitcher and hosted by Glynn Washington. The podcast focused on the new religion best known for the 1997 mass suicides in Calfornia that ended the group. Listen to the podcast online, or with your favorite podcast app.

 

Religion and AI

At Lake Forest College I am a Project Director for our multiyear Mellon Foundation funded grant, HUMAN (Humanities Understanding of the Machine-Assisted Nexus), an investigation of the intersections of Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities. In addition to supporting my colleagues in their work as part of the grant, I am studying the role of AI in the imagination and thought of new religious movements.

Virtual Reality Work

I have been experimented with virtual reality, 360° photography, photogrammetry, and augmented reality as tools for digital research and teaching. Most recently, I worked with a team of undergraduate research assistants to create immersive 360° virtual reality tours of several sacred spaces near our Lake Forest College campus and farther afield.

You can see examples at the Digital Chicago website.

Support for that project came from the Digital Chicago program at Lake Forest College, funded by an $800,000, four-year (2015-2018) grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to involve students and faculty in exploring specific at-risk or forgotten sites in Chicago’s history.