Publications: ict
I research how playable software can produce new knowledge between scholars, institutions, and communities. Game design is a growing practice in academia and meets growing games literacy in the public, but we lack methodologies that operationalize making and play as collaborative humanistic inquiry. My dissertation contributes propositional modeling, a methodology where digital artifacts trigger divergent interpretation and accumulate what that interpretation yields, so that public play compounds knowledge scholars can’t produce alone.
About
I research how playable software can produce new knowledge between scholars, institutions, and communities. Game design is a growing practice in academia and meets growing games literacy in the public, but we lack methodologies that operationalize making and play as collaborative humanistic inquiry. My dissertation contributes propositional modeling, a methodology where digital artifacts trigger divergent interpretation and accumulate what that interpretation yields, so that public play compounds knowledge scholars can’t produce alone.
Unité d'Habitation Wikisurvey
A wiki survey tool—a survey format where participants both vote on and submit new options, so the survey evolves as people interact with it. This implementation draws on two prior systems (All Our Ideas and POLIS) and adds AI-assisted seed generation and automated qualitative coding. I developed this web application as part of the MetaFraming research.
MetaFraming: A Methodology for Democratizing Heritage Interpretation through Wiki Surveys
A participatory methodology for heritage study using AI-assisted wiki surveys, a technology from the computational social sciences that allows the survey itself to evolve as people interact with it. I developed MetaFraming using three distinct GPT-3.5 pipelines: one generates hundreds of 'seed' propositions from background research (controlled for tone and topic), another interprets user-submitted comments by providing contextual history of their interactions, and a third automatically codes comments for sentiment and topics to speed qualitative analysis and aid abuse detection. The methodology was developed through a case study on Le Corbusier's Unité d'habitation and published as a conference paper. Read the full paper here.
Are Surveys Necessary? Designing Virtual Environments for Participatory Research
A prototype Virtual Environment (VE) designed as an immersive online 'guest book' where hundreds of users could asynchronously decorate a shared virtual space and leave messages for one another. I developed this VE for a workshop on the intangible cultural heritage of Córdoba's communal patios, introducing key design strategies for asynchronous interaction ('claims' and 'traces') and a novel workflow using Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate qualitative coding and moderation of text contributions. Published as a book chapter in the 2025 Bloomsbury Academic volume, Clever Design in Critical Times: Conceptualizing the Callidocene, arguing that interactive VEs can serve as effective tools for participatory research beyond traditional surveys in the Digital Humanities. The book is available from Bloomsbury Academic.
"Patio Walk": Córdoba
A pair of web applications for a Dariah Udigish Working Group project on the intangible cultural heritage of Córdoba's communal patios. The first was a site-specific recording tool for field workers that automatically linked photos, texts, audio interviews, and surveys to their GPS locations in a GIS database. The second was an interactive map-based visualization that displayed all collected materials overlaid on the city's patios. As a member of the working group, I was responsible for the design and development of both the data collection and final visualization tools.
"Scan To Ar": Palermo
A co-design workshop using rapid 3D site capture and an AR design tool with a library of design primitives (akin to Lego bricks). The goal was to repurpose abandoned industrial heritage in Palermo. I collaborated with Federico La Russa to facilitate the workshop, using Wikar (my augmented reality platform) to swiftly mock up and review architectural proposals with stakeholders over a single weekend. The co-design process helped the local campus community collect a public voice for preserving the open space, and the site opened as a public space in October 2022. Conference presentation and publication documented the methodology.
ICT For Urban Heritage: Palermo
A co-design workshop in Palermo to envision the future of an abandoned warehouse, serving as the first field test for my dissertation research on propositional modeling. I designed two competing architectural proposals (conservative and radical) and used my AR platform, Wikar, to allow local stakeholders to view them on-site. By testing the proposals at different scales (a 1:500 map vs. 1:1 walkthroughs), the process surfaced the community's deep attachment to the site's recent, unwritten history as a local park. This visualization work gave their tacit knowledge an empirical basis, and the feedback directly informed the final design, which preserved the area as a public plaza.