Speakers

Daniel Alexander

Daniel Alexander is a Reader in Expanded Photographic Practice at London College of Communication, and Programme Director of Photography. Daniel’s practice based research uses photography, moving image, 3D scanning and other expanded imaging technologies in the creation of long form projects, disseminated through exhibitions, short films and books. Previous research has explored the role the image plays in commemoration and memorialisation in projects including Brains: The Mind as Matter, commissioned by and exhibited at the Wellcome Collection and When War is Over, exhibited internationally and published as a monograph by Dewi Lewis Publishing. Scales of Resistance, a film made in collaboration with ScanLab Projects and a team of surface chemists and microbiologists from the University of Nottingham who developed methods for visualising scientific data gathered by ‘seeing machines’ at the different stages of the study and prevention of antimicrobial resistance. Daniel’s current research focuses on the social, cultural and political use of the vertical perspective in photography and imaging.

David Basiru Amuneni

David Basiru Amuneni is a Third year PhD student at the School of Creative Technologies and his research is focused on the use of creative technology tools such as game engines and Virtual Reality systems for visualisation of multi wavelength data sets. Generally, these creative tools are used for entertainment and video games development, however, his research explores the possibilities of adapting the advanced underlying graphics and immersive systems for scientific visualisation specifically in large multi wavelength astronomical data. He has currently developed an application that visualises galaxy data sets in an interactive immersive environment where users can view and navigated selected galaxies, colourise, mix and match different light bands of the same image. The research bridges a gap between astrophysicists’ community and game developers and is being conducted in partnership with external collaborators at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Bologna, Italy. The research would not only build a demonstrative standalone immersive tool but will create a framework for game engine based astronomical visualisation. This will serve as a handshake between game developers and the astronomy domain.

Rachael Brown

Rachael Brown is a Senior Lecturer at Portsmouth School of Architecture. She currently coordinates the third-year Interior Architecture and Design programme and has also acted as Course Leader for the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Interior courses. Before becoming a lecturer, Rachael was an Associate Director of BDP, one of Europe’s largest interdisciplinary design practices, and worked on a diverse range of award-winning projects; she also worked as an interior designer at Hampshire County Architects and for Hassell Architects in Australia. Rachael has taught art and design in Secondary, Further and Higher Education having completed a PGCE at the Institute of Education in London and subsequently obtaining a PGCTLHE at the University of Portsmouth; she is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. As a practice-based researcher, Rachael uses collage, printing, and painting to visualise social, political and cultural narratives. Current projects include Time after Time, a series of three hand-crafted artist’s books that illustrate selected elements of the extraordinary social, political and environmental global events that occurred between 2016 and 2021 (developed as part of her recently completed MA in Illustration); she is also working on a collaborative research project, Tyneham Unravelled, which aims to reveal the layered narratives of a village that was evacuated during WWII.

Kit Danowski

Kit Danowski, Senior Lecturer in Performance, is a playwright, director, and performer. Xe has presented performance work and spoken word in Phoenix, Brooklyn, Berlin, Krakow, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Brighton, among other places. This work has been performed in galleries, music venues, and found spaces, and occasionally in theatres. Xyr book of experimental prose, 'dog's ear', was published by Hoot n' Waddle Press in 2018, and has a monograph, Trances and Traces: Ancestor work as method for performance, in process for publication from Intellect, Ltd.

Kremena Dimitrova

Kremena Dimitrova is a London based illustrator-as-historian, storyteller, lecturer in Visual Culture, and practice-based PhD researcher in Visualising History. Her PhD conceptualises and explores comics-based research as a contemporary form of decolonial resistance. Kremena specialises in children's illustration, comics, murals, public art installations, mapmaking/trails, and visual storytelling in the cultural, heritage, and education sectors. Her commissions often involve working with archives and collections and using a mixture of creative approaches such as character development, humour, rhymes, words, and images to bring hidden and marginalised narratives to life. She experiments with photographic material and traditionally made textures, painted, drawn, and printed backgrounds, which she often combines into digital collages. Many of Kremena’s commissions are socially engaged and site-specific in nature and involve collaborating with the public to explore history, culture, and heritage in creative and memorable ways - through art, storytelling, and co-creation. Kremena focusses on edutainment. Exploring different media, from drawing, painting, and printmaking to collage and comics making, participants are encouraged to be imaginative in an inclusive, creative, and playful environment. www.kremenadimitrova.com

Lincoln Geraghty

Lincoln Geraghty is Professor of Media Cultures in the School of Film, Media and Communication at the University of Portsmouth. He serves as editorial advisor for The Journal of Popular Culture, Transformative Works and Culture, Journal of Fandom Studies and Journal of Popular Television with interests in science fiction film and television, fandom, and collecting in popular culture. He is Senior Editor for the online open access journal from Taylor Francis, Cogent Arts and Humanities. Major publications include Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe (IB Tauris, 2007), American Science Fiction Film and Television (Berg, 2009) and Cult Collectors: Nostalgia, Fandom and Collecting Popular Culture (Routledge, 2014). He has also edited The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film and Culture (McFarland, 2008), Channeling the Future: Essays on Science Fiction and Fantasy Television (Scarecrow, 2009), The Smallville Chronicles: Critical Essays on the Television Series (Scarecrow, 2011), Popular Media Cultures: Fans, Audiences and Paratexts (2015) and, with Mark Jancovich, The Shifting Definitions of Genre: Essays on Labeling Film, Television Shows and Media (McFarland, 2008).

Olly Gruner is a Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture at the University of Portsmouth. His research has a particular focus on visual histories and representations of the 1960s and 1970s. He is the author of Screening the Sixties: Hollywood Cinema and the Politics of Memory (Palgrave, 2016) and co-editor (with Peter Krämer) of Grease Is the Word: Exploring a Cultural Phenomenon (Anthem, 2019). Olly’s creative history collaborations with illustrator Louis Netter and Dan McCabe have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various journals and edited books. He is currently writing a history of Hollywood screenwriters of the 1960s and 1970s, a project for which he received a Harry Ransom Fellowship from the University of Texas, Austin.

Oliver Gruner

Simone Gumtau

Simone Gumtau is a visual communication designer, academic researcher and lecturer. For her research, Simone has designed haptic interfaces, responsive environments, complex adaptive interaction and multimodal, data driven interfaces for marine engineering, nonverbal expression and learning.
Her interests are how we as humans interface with information, ecological approaches to interdisciplinary practice (art-science) and design research for change. Currently Simone is a lecturer in Visual Culture, and supervises MRes and PhD students in Data Visualization, Information and Interaction Design Practice, Practice Research, and Creative Practice in an Ecological System.

Rebecca Janicker

Rebecca Janicker is a senior lecturer in film and media studies at the University of Portsmouth. She received her PhD in American studies from the University of Nottingham in 2014. She is the author of The Literary Haunted House: Lovecraft, Matheson, King and the Horror in Between (McFarland 2015) and the editor of Reading ‘American Horror Story’: Essays on the Television Franchise (McFarland 2017) and The Scientist in Popular Culture: Playing God and Working Wonders ( Lexington 2022). Her publications focus on the fiction of Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft, as well as on horror in film, TV, theatre and comics.

Phevos Kallitsis

Phevos Kallitsis is an Architect (National Technical University of Athens) and Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. He teaches architecture and interior design. His research focuses on cinematic representation and urban spaces. His publications have explored horror films and the notion of safety in the city, gendered and queer approaches to urban space and the meaning of home for people with dementia. He has worked as an architect, cinema critic and set designer for theatre productions and TV.

Ziggy Kolker

Ziggy Kolker is an artist and full-time senior lecturer on the BA(Hons) Photography and the MA Photography programmes at the University of Portsmouth. Her research interests lie in the evolving ontology of the computer generated image and how this can be situated within the photographic tradition. This work has directly informed her teaching practice and Ziggy has introduced and embedded CGI and other virtual photography modules across all years of the BA Photography degree programme. Ziggy completed her MA Photography at LCC, University of the Arts London in 2009 and has since exhibited both in the UK and internationally including participation in the Musee de l’Elysee’s ‘reGeneration’ project and being invited to present work at The Hyeres International Photography Festival. Her work has been featured in several photographic text books including ‘Why Art Photography?’ by Lucy Soutter and ‘Rethinking Photography’ by P. Smith and C. Lefley.

Peter Krämer

Peter Krämer is a Senior Research Fellow in Cinema & TV in the Leicester Media School at De Montfort University (Leicester, UK). He also is a Senior Fellow in the School of Art, Media and American Studies at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK) and a regular guest lecturer at several other universities in the UK, Germany and the Czech Republic. He is the author or editor of eleven scholarly books, including the BFI Film Classic volumes on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and he also co-wrote a book about American cinema for children.

Tim Lenton

Professor Tim Lenton is the Director of the Global Systems Institute and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter. Tim’s research focuses on understanding the behaviour of the Earth as a whole system, the complex web of biological, geochemical and physical processes that shape the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans, as well as the climate of the Earth. His award-winning work identifying Tipping Points in the climate system has led him to examine Positive Tipping Points within our social systems which could help accelerate progress towards a sustainable future. He is a member of the Earth Commission and is a Clarivate Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher. Tim has twice been cited in lists of the world’s most influential climate scientists.

Jennifer Levasseur

Dr. Jennifer Levasseur received her BA in history from the University of Michigan in 1999, an MA in American Studies from The George Washington University in 2002, and a PhD in history at George Mason University in 2014. Her book, Through Astronaut Eyes: Photography from Early Human Spaceflight (Purdue University Press, July 2020), looks at the cultural significance of astronaut photography. She serves as the responsible curator for the Museum's astronaut cameras, chronographs, the Space Shuttle, and International Space Station programs. Prior to her work at the National Air and Space Museum, she worked as a historic interpreter at George Washington's Mount Vernon. She started her Smithsonian career with an internship in the National Portrait Gallery's Department of Photography. There, she cataloged photographs acquired through donation and developed strategies for recording portrait information in the museum's electronic database. Since 2002, Jennifer has worked at the Air and Space Museum on artifact loans, serves as the Program Committee chair for the biennial Mutual Concerns of Air and Space Museums conference, and as a department representative on digital projects. She curated the 2015 spacewalk anniversary exhibit Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity and currently serves as exhibition curator for the Moving Beyond Earth exhibition.

Neil M. Maher

Neil M. Maher is a Professor of History in the Federated History Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University at Newark, where he teaches environmental history, political history, and the history of environmental justice in the United States. His most recent book, Apollo in the Age of Aquarius (Harvard 2017), examines the relationship between the space race and the grassroots political and social struggles of the 1960s era. The book was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title, a Bloomberg View Must Read Book, a Smithsonian Best Book, and received the Eugene M. Emme best book award from the American Astronautical Society (2017). Maher’s writing has also appeared in academic journals including Modern American History, Social History, and Environmental History, as well as in more popular news outlets including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yes! magazine. Currently, Maher is a resident fellow at the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers in Manhattan, where he will be researching and writing an environmental justice history of Newark, New Jersey.

Claudia Maraston

Claudia Maraston is a Professor of Astrophysics at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation of the University of Portsmouth. Her field of research is the formation and evolution of galaxies. She obtained her PhD at the University of Bologna (Italy, 1998), after which she has been research fellow at the Ludwig-Maximillian University of Munich (Germany) and at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (Garching, Germany). In 2004 she was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowiship which she took to Oxford University and in 2007 a ERC Marie Curie Excellence Grant which she took to Portsmouth University. Claudia was awarded the 2018 Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for ‘work of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics’, being only the second woman to obtain the award in the 80-year history of the medal (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddington_Medal). In 2022 she was included by research.com in the top 1000 physicists worldwide and the top 1000 female scientists (i.e. all scientific disciplines included, worldwide). Claudia has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and sat on distinguished international boards, including the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, the Finnish Academy of Science, the European Southern Observatory. She is a member of the editorial board of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and has been invited scientist at numerous institutions worldwide, including Yale university, Caltech, the Einstein Institute of Hannover, Leiden University, the Carnegie Observatory of Pasadena.

Dan McCabe

Dan McCabe has over 22 years’ experience as a creative practitioner within

the fields of branding and packaging. He has 15 years experience as a design educator, during which time he has been at the forefront of exploring the role of graphic-designer-as-historian, producing a series of works devoted to rethinking heraldry (which was showcased in the internationally-recognised handbook Visual Research). He has made presentations on the subject of modern heraldry and creative histories at institutions such as the Society of Antiquaries and Oxford university, and published papers and practice research in academic journals that include The Coat of Arms and The Poster.

Dan is Course leader of the MA Graphic Design programme at the University
of Portsmouth and a fellow of the Higher Education Authority.

Paul Newland

Paul Newland is a retired academic seeking negotiations with the sacred from a perspective of interface design, biosemiotics, 4-fold typologies and a cheeky cherub naughtiness! Newly acquired skill as an AI whisperer to ‘flow’ designed by Kevin Fischer and Joel Kronander from methexis.ai

Chris Pattison

Chris Pattison is a researcher at the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, currently working on code and data analysis for the upcoming Euclid Space Telescope. He completed his PhD studying the very early universe in May 2020, and has since worked on a wide variety of topics. This has included studying the spread of diseases using software designed for telescopes, and working to use machine learning to diagnose fractured bones. Outside of work, he runs a YouTube channel that covers all kinds of topics in space, astronomy, and astrophysics.

Nick Pepin

Dr Nick Pepin is Reader in Climate Science in the School of Environment, Geography and Geosciences in the University of Portsmouth. He is an expert in mountain climate change, leading the global effort to understand why mountain regions are experiencing more rapid environmental changes than elsewhere on the planet as a result of global warming. He has published highly cited research on elevation-dependent warming patterns (different rates of global warming at different elevations) and has field research ranging from the tropics to the Arctic. He has monitored changing weather conditions on Kilimanjaro for nearly 20 years, including the impact of deforestation on the mountain snows and associated temperature patterns, and his research in Finnish Lapland has also contributed to understanding reduction in snow/ice and changes in cold extremes in the Arctic. He has collaborated with scientists across the world including in China, Europe and the USA. He teaches climate science on the Geography and Environmental Science degree programmes, and has instilled a love of weather and climate in many generations of students. He is extremely pleased to provide a commentary on the Blue Marble image from a climate perspective.

Robert Poole

Robert Poole is Professor of History at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, and lives in Greater Manchester. He is the author of Earthrise: how Man First Saw the Earth (Yale, 2008) and he has written articles on the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and the space advocate Arthur C. Clarke. In 2011-16 he was an associate of ‘The Future in the Stars’ research programme at the Free University of Berlin, contributing to the European Astroculture series of conferences and publications. He has been a visiting fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, the Sorbonne, and Durham University, and has appeared on public radio and TV in the UK, US, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain. In a parallel life he is the author

of Peterloo: the English Uprising (OUP, 2019). An extended second edition of Earthrise: a Short History of the Whole Earth will be available shortly on all platforms both as an e-book and in print.

Nik Wakefield

Dr Nik Wakefield is Senior Lecturer in the School of Art, Design and Performance at University of Portsmouth and Course Leader of BA (Hons) Drama and Performance. He is a researcher, artist and writer working mostly in performance but also across dance, theatre and visual art. His research is concerned with theoretical issues of time and ecology in contemporary performance and art practices. Wakefield’s solo and collaborative performances have been shown in UK, USA and Europe. His writing has been published in journals such as Performance Research, Maska, Choreographic Practices, Contemporary Theatre Review, and TDR. Nik Wakefield is co-convener of the working group in Theatre, Performance, and Philosophy in the Theatre and Performance Research Association.

NASA's "Blue Marble" Photograph Fifty Years On