About the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank

The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the stories and digital record of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media and the University of New Orleans, in partnership with the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of American History and other partners, organized this project.

Generously funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank contributes to the ongoing effort by historians and archivists to preserve the record of these storms by collecting first-hand accounts, on-scene images, blog postings, and podcasts. We hope to foster some positive legacies by allowing the people affected by these storms to tell their stories in their own words, which as part of the historical record will remain accessible to a wide audience for generations to come.

This project builds on prior work by George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media, and other partners such as the Library of Congress and the Red Cross, to collect and preserve history online, especially through the ECHO project and the September 11 Digital Archive. It is part of a growing practice of using the Internet to preserve the past through “digital memory banks.”

Questions? Feel free to contact us at info@hurricanearchive.org

Member of the media? Read our latest headlines and download press releases from our news page, or contact Mills Kelly, the executive producer of the project.

Staff Biographies

T. Mills Kelly, executive producer of the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, is the Associate Director of the Center for History and New Media and an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and his doctorate from George Washington University. He is the author of Without Remorse: Czech National Socialism in Late-Habsburg Austria and is the principal investigator or co-director of three National Endowment for the Humanities exemplary education projects that provide digital resources to students and teachers of world and European history. In 2005 he received the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty Award, the state’s highest honor for faculty excellence, and was the first recipient of this award in the category “Teaching with Technology.”

Roy Rosenzweig is Mark and Barbara Fried Professor of History & New Media at George Mason University, where he also heads the Center on History and New Media. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of several books, including The Park and the People: A History of Central Park, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life; Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920; History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment; Presenting the Past: Essays on History and the Public; A Companion to Post-1945 America; and Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Presenting, and Preserving, and the Past on the Web. He is the recipient of the Richard W. Lyman Award (awarded by the National Humanities Center) for outstanding achievement in the use of information technology to advance scholarship and teaching in the humanities.

Dan Cohen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University, and Director of Research Projects at the Center for History and New Media. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton, his master’s from Harvard, and his doctorate from Yale. He is the co-author of Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, and the author of a forthcoming book exploring the values and social motivations of the Victorian mathematicians who created the logical systems at the heart of modern digital technologies.

Tom Scheinfeldt is Assistant Director of the Center for History and New Media. He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard and his master’s and doctorate in Modern History from Oxford. His doctoral thesis examined the public role of science history in the inter-war period. His research interests include the history of popular science and the history of museums, and he has worked extensively in the fields of public history and museum studies.

Josh Greenberg is Associate Director of Research Projects at the Center for History and New Media. He received his bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and his master’s and doctorate in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University. His doctoral dissertation and forthcoming book is on the early history of video stores in America. His research interests include the history of information technologies and the relationship between science and the public, in addition to hacking around with web applications.

Sheila Brennan is the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank Project Manager at the Center for History and New Media. She is working towards her PhD in history at George Mason where she is minoring in history and new media. She earned her Bachelor’s from Bates College and Master’s from Notre Dame. Prior to coming to George Mason, she was the Director of Education and Public Programs at the U.S. Navy Museum in Washington, DC.

Michael Mizell-Nelson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of New Orleans and the Content and Outreach Lead for the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank. His research interests focus upon the social and cultural history of New Orleans, and he is completing his first book, a study of race relations on New Orleans public transit system titled Race and Democracy in Transit: Slavery to Gentrification on New Orleans Streetcars.

Jim Safley is Web Programmer and Digital Archivist for the Center for History and New Media. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from George Mason University and is currently working towards his master’s degree in American history. His archival career includes posts at the National Archives and Records Administration, records manager at Phi Beta Kappa national headquarters, and archivist assistant at GMU’s Special Collections and Archives. Affiliated with CHNM since 2002, Safley applies traditional archiving experience to his work in digital archiving, web programming, and database administration.

Nate Agrin is Creative Team Lead on the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank project. He received his bachelor’s degree in molecular biology at Clark University in Massachusetts, and has published research on protein sequencing and data storage. Nate is interested in how people interact with information by building unique interfaces to simplify complex data. In the future he hopes to continue his multi-faceted studies of information in graduate school.

Olivia Ryan is the Echo Project Manager at the Center for History and New Media. She received her bachelor’s degree in history and political science from the State University of New York at Brockport and is currently working toward a master’s degree in U.S. history at George Mason University. Her research interests include U.S. social and legal history.

Jeremy Boggs is a web designer and developer at the Center for History and New Media, and a PhD student in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University. Jeremy received his Bachelor’s degree in History and Government from the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, and his Master’s in History from Virginia Tech.

Allison O’Connor is the Production Artist for the project. She is an online history associate at the Center for History and New Media and is working toward her PhD in history at George Mason University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in history and Italian from University of Wisconsin—Madison and a master’s degree in liberal studies from Georgetown University. Prior to joining CHNM she taught web design at the college level, and worked in the publishing industry for several years.

Roger Mellen is the Publicity Assistant for the project. He is a research assistant at the Center for History and New Media and is currently working on his dissertation on history of print culture at George Mason University. His undergraduate degree is in journalism from Hampshire College, his masters is in mass communication from the University of Denver, and he is former Assistant Professor of Journalism at American University and GMU. He spent 20 years producing television news, which included Web news production.

Partners

The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank would like to thank its partners for their generosity in helping us to collect, preserve and present the history of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.