Overview
Over the past decade, my work has explored how immersive computing can transform cultural study into an applied, collaborative, and data-informed act of inquiry. Moving from early experiments in digital game-based learning (DGBL) to the design of complex virtual reality (VR) environments, my projects investigate how digital simulation, spatial computing, and embodied interaction can deepen interpretation, enhance learning, and expand public access to cultural heritage. This trajectory reflects an ongoing effort to translate humanistic interpretation into buildable, testable, and analyzable immersive experiences.
Each of these projects exemplifies the applied humanities: the fusion of humanistic interpretation, technological design, and data analytics to address cultural and ethical questions through experimentation and public engagement. Working with interdisciplinary teams of students, faculty, and external partners, I design and lead initiatives that use XR to connect research with teaching, cultural heritage with computation, and interpretation with empirical evaluation. Many of these collaborations have been supported by federal and institutional grants, resulting in open-source tools, open educational resources (OER), and public-facing digital exhibits.
Toolkit
My digital humanities toolkit utilizes audio editing (Audacity), screencasting and video editing (WeVideo and Camtasia), version control systems and development platforms (Git and GitHub), project management platforms (Trello and Slack), statistical computing and graphics (R and Tidyverse), photogrammetry (3DF Zephyr), interactive fiction (Inform 7 and Twine), 3D modeling and animation (Blender), UML diagramming (Modelio), 3D procedural texture painting (Adobe Substance), game engine programming (Unity), VR development packages (XR Interaction Toolkit), and 3D scanning (peel 3d and VXelements). In designing and developing VR experiences, I employ team brainstorming and bodystorming sessions, activity diagrams, whiteboxing, and agile project frameworks to draft a user experience design document and rapidly iterate toward a proof of concept (PoC) or minimum viable product (MVP) that can be used in research and teaching, or referenced in articles and external grant applications.
Impact
10 interdisciplinary 3D/XR projects · 60+ student collaborators · 5 museum and institutional partners · 2 internal grants (Grinnell College Innovation Fund; $154,000 USD) · 2 federal grants (NEH Digital Humanities Advancement, NEH Institutes for Higher Education; $285,704 USD) · 80+ cultural artifacts digitized · 8+ publications · 12+ national and international conference presentations. These projects constitute a sustained program of applied digital humanities research that fuses technological innovation with humanistic inquiry. They illustrate how immersive computing, game engine design, and cultural analytics can generate new forms of interpretation and engagement, linking theory to practice, research to teaching, and local experimentation to global dissemination. In doing so, they demonstrate how collaborative, open-access, and data-informed approaches can reimagine the future of humanistic scholarship in a digital and experiential age.
NEH Projects
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| VR | Virtual Viking Longship Project Funding: $46,135 USD Project Directors: Drs. David Neville (PI), Austin Mason, and Tim Arner This NEH-funded project explores and tests strategies for integrating and fairly compensating undergraduate student learning and labor in the development of long-term digital humanities research projects. Combining the strengths of two leading liberal arts colleges with the multidisciplinary affordances of virtual reality (VR) technologies, the project aims to create an immersive VR experience for visualizing the social and cultural roles of a Viking Age longship by forming a DH community of inquiry and practice that cultivates deep competencies in spatial computing within the context of a liberal arts education. Student co-authored outcomes will include: (1) an open-source minimum viable product VR experience made in consultation with museum partners in the US and Europe; (2) experience design document outlining future development; (3) presentations on our findings at major DH and History conferences; and (4) open-access article detailing the project’s strategies and recommended best practices. Project blog NEH grant details NEH white paper Project GitHub organization Prototype walkthrough Prototype APK file (sideload with SideQuest) Hedeby Chest Demo |
| Immersive Global Middle Ages Funding: $239,569 USD Project Directors: Drs. Roger Martínez-Dávila (PI) and Lynn Ramey This NEH-funded institute brought together an international community of scholars to examine how immersive technologies can enrich student learning, public education, and the study of the premodern world. As an invited expert and workshop leader, I contributed to the institute’s focus on immersive environments by introducing participants to the pedagogical and interpretive potential of virtual and extended reality. My session explored how spatial computing and interactive storytelling can make humanistic inquiry more experiential and accessible to broader audiences. I also introduced participants to the project workflows developed in GCIEL, detailing the hardware and software used in our development pipeline and suggesting practical ways these workflows could be adapted to their own institutional contexts. Institute website |
Projects
| VR | Grinnell College Museum of Art 3D Scanning Partnership GCIEL partnered with the Grinnell College Museum of Art to produce over 80 high-resolution digital scans of cultural artifacts, including ancient Greek sculptures, Persian pottery, African art, and contemporary works. Hosted on GCIEL’s Sketchfab site under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license, these scans reveal fine surface details often missed in physical examination, such as the subtle textures on Persian ceramics. This collaboration enhanced global access to Grinnell’s collections and supported ongoing research in digital cultural heritage and preservation. GCIEL Sketchfab site |
| The German Environmentalism VR Project Expanding the scope of the original flat screen 3D game, which introduced players to glass recycling and waste management systems in German public spaces, this VR experience will include more narrative to situate the user in authentic German cultural situations and more in-game tasks related to recycling and waste management practices. The project will determine whether increased immersion and sense of presence in a completely virtual environment can target greater learning outcomes in second language and culture acquisition, and perhaps even realize outcomes that were not discovered in the 3D version of the game. Project GitHub repo Playable VR Experience Video of prototype walkthrough Article detailing experiment results | |
| Envisioning Heorot VR Project Project Director: Dr. Tim Arner Continuing the work of The Grinnell Beowulf, the project will construct a VR simulation of Heorot based on archaeological excavations of Viking meadhalls in Denmark and England, particularly the hall at Lejre, as well as accounts from historical and poetic records from the early Middle Ages. The project will help modern readers of Beowulf to better understand the civic spaces that helped shape the poem’s social structures, allowing them to see how the layout of the hall contributes to its function as a political and social arena. Project blog Playable VR Experience Turntable render of meadhall Video of project walkthrough Meadhall hearth animation | |
| The Uncle Sam Plantation VR Project The Uncle Sam (Constancia) Plantation was a 19th-century sugar plantation located near Convent in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Before the plantation complex was razed in 1940 to make room for a river levee, floor plans and elevations of the buildings were produced by the Historic American Building Survey. Incorporating 3D models based on these floor plans and elevations, this VR experience will virtually recreate the spaces of the plantation complex and tell the lost histories of the people who lived there. Project blog Project GitHub repo Video of project walkthrough Turntable render of double-pen slave cabin Project video for the 2017 HASTAC Conference | |
| The Math Museum VR Project Project Director: Dr. Chris French This project is inspired by the mathematical models from the late 19th century when mathematicians partnered with industrialists to model new kinds of surfaces out of plaster, cardboard, or wire. These models brought new developments in algebraic geometry and new notions of non-Euclidean geometry. Immersed within the virtual Math Museum, students can interact with visualized mathematical concepts thereby experiencing greater enjoyment and comprehension of mathematical ideas. Graph-Coloring GitHub repo Graph-Isomorphism GitHub repo VMM-Ruled-Surfaces-Experience GitHub repo Video of VMM-Ruled-Surfaces-Experience tutorial Video of VMM-Ruled Surfaces-Experiences exercises VMM-Curvature-Experience GitHub repo Video of VMM-Curvature-Experience walkthrough | |
| Virtual Museum Experience The physical layout of a museum gallery and the manner in which artwork is installed influence how visitors interpret an exhibition. The Virtual Museum Experience allows users to experiment with the physical layout of a museum space and the relationship of exhibition objects to each other. By changing the structure of an exhibition, users assume a more active role in constructing meaning and understanding the effects of layouts on spatial narratives and space-use patterns. Project GitHub repo Video of prototype walkthrough | |
| 2017 Digital Liberal Arts Teaching Fair VR Demo The first virtual reality experience created in the Grinnell College Immersive Experiences Lab (GCIEL). The prototype includes a tutorial room, models developed for the Uncle Sam Plantation project with the HASTAC 2017 poster and video, and an interactive museum exhibition. The tutorial room was envisioned to function as a hub connecting various virtual reality experiences created by GCIEL and also as a starting point for goal-oriented learning quests in these experiences. Project GitHub repo Video of prototype walkthrough | |
| DGBL | The Digital Bahnhof (DigiBahn) Project The project resulted in a 3D experience that teaches German recycling and waste management practices in a simulated real-world space. Future versions of the game will include challenges requiring students to navigate a virtual German train station and environs while meeting specific instructional goals. Project blog Game EXE package (ZIP) Game source code (ZIP) Game instructional materials (ZIP) Video of project walkthrough Article detailing experiment results |
| Ausflug am Wochenende nach München Interactive Fiction Game The project resulted in an interactive fiction game that teaches students the German vocabulary and culture necessary to navigate a train station while in Germany. By means of an interactive text-based interface that responds to student input, the game mediates the experience of preparing for rail travel in Germany and transmits cultural values by engaging spending practices, travel preferences, and interaction with cultural agents. Inform 6 source code (ZIP) Z-Code game executable (ZIP) Article detailing experiment results | |
| OER | The German Professor YouTube Channel A digital repository for open educational resources and a social media platform for facilitating program growth and outreach. The channel hosts a collection of closed captioned, high definition instructional videos with links to PDF study sheets and OpenOffice Impress slides. All site materials are released under a CC BY-NC-SA license. YouTube channel |
| Wege in den Beruf: German For Your Career A prototype open hybrid course for teaching business German to students at the secondary and post-secondary levels. The course seeks to promote the study of the German language and culture by connecting the study of the German language and culture to increased career opportunities for students. Canvas prototype course module Article describing design of Business German hybrid course |
Image Gallery
Video Gallery
(Photo by Justin Hayworth/Grinnell College)