EML DIRECTOR & HELIOTROPE CO-EDITOR

Dr. Mél Hogan is the Director of the Environmental Media Lab (EML) and Associate Professor, Communication, Media and Film (CMF) at the University of Calgary. Since 2012, her work has focused on server farms and data centers (Critical Studies of the Cloud). Now, she’s looking at DNA-based data storage (Genomic Media) and how humans are made in the data center — always with planetary anxieties in mind.

EML MANAGER

Cristalle Smith (she/her) is the lab manager. @SmithCristalle is a poet published in Arc Poetry Magazine, Room Magazine, QWERTY Magazine, The Maynard, and elsewhere. Cristalle won subTerrain Magazine’s Lush Triumphant Literary Awards for Creative Nonfiction in 2020. She has a chapbook with Frog Hollow Press, Sea Glass for the Chronically Alone, and is a PhD student at the University of Calgary in Creative Writing.

HELIOTROPE CO-EDITOR

Tessa Brown is a Researcher in the EML and Heliotrope’s manager and lead co-editor. She is also a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary, supervised by Dr. Mél Hogan.

EML RESEARCHER(s)

Shena Kaul is a PhD student in the Department of Communication, Media and Film, and a researcher for two of the areas of focus at the EML: Sentient AI and Critical Studies of the Cloud.

THE EML’S ADVISORY BOARD

  • Gwendolyn Blue (Geography, University of Calgary)

  • Jeff Diamanti (Literary and Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam)

  • Lori Emerson (Media Archaeology Lab, University of Colorado Boulder)

  • Yuri Furuhata (Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University)

  • Anne Pasek (School of the Environment, Trent University)

  • Sarah Roberts (Information Studies, UCLA)

  • Sarah Sharma (McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology, University of Toronto)

  • Ayesha Vemuri (Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University)

  • Andrea Zeffiro (Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre, McMaster University)

PAST RESEARCHERS, practitioners & workshop leaders

Sean RM Willett (MA, CMF, University of Calgary) produced the 3-part series of the data center industrial complex (DCIC, 2019-2021)

Erin McGregor (of Queer Public) gave a day-long workshop and a public lecture called The Anatomy of a Podcast, in collaboration with the CIH. (2020)

Crystal Chokshi (PhD Candidate, University of Calgary) helped launch the EML as Associate Director (2020-2022). Her dissertation is being supervised by Dr. Hogan. She starts a new role as Assistant Professor in Mount Royal University's School of Communication Studies.