Student Spotlight: Will Thomas, PhD Student
After a professional career building and administering databases for corporations, the federal government, and nonprofit clients, as well as serving as an IT director for nonprofits, Will Thomas joined the iSchool as a PhD student in 2016. Under the direction of Dr. Richard Marciano, he is attempting to synthesize a vision of archives which accounts for computation, both in the shift of documentation from paper records to Web-enabled databases and in the weaponization of archives by industrial, structural, racist violence represented by the manufactured consent as to what should be documented and who should access. Will is invigorated and inspired by the incredible array of research areas of his iSchool colleagues and the interdisciplinary conversations that he has on a day-to-day basis. Now that he’s finished organizing the international Computational Archival Science workshop at the DCIC and is winding down his involvement with the African American Digital Humanities initiative, Will will have more time to listen to jazz, continue the family culinary tradition by cooking his Virginia/Texas/Berkeley fusion cuisine, and take long walks on the excellent trails here in Prince George’s County. And reading. Lots and lots of reading…