Second China Project

Project Personnel

Paul Fishwick, Amy Jo Coffey, Julie Henderson, and Elinore Fresh

Amy Jo Coffey, Assistant Professor in telecommunication management at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. Coffey studies ethnic and foreign language audiences in the U.S., audience behavior, and economic and management issues related to the electronic media industry. Her work has been published in the International Journal on Media Management, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, and the Handbook of Media Management and Economics. Coffey is involved in the experimental design, methodology, and assessment of Second China in terms of its promotion of cultural knowledge and cultural awareness.

Paul Fishwick, Professor of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering, and Director of Digital Arts and Sciences. He is Principal Investigator and is responsible directly for the virtual environment content creation, technical VE + art: scripts, artwork, and geometry. Paul is responsible for all Second Life content in the form of models, textures, interactions, scripts, and programming. Content developers will request specific technical functionality and Paul works with three graduate students to achieve the functionality. At the same time, ideas emerge from this technical work, suggesting potential new ways in which cultural content and immersion can occur.

Julie Henderson, International Program Specialist, College of Pharmacy. Julie is responsible for the practical aspects of integrating learning methodologies into the environment, instructional design, integration of the two components of the learning environment. Julie brings experience with Chinese culture, technology, and learning methodologies together in the development of the learning environment.

Rasha Kamhawi, Assistant Professor at the Department of Telecommunication, College of Journalism and Communications. Kamhawi's research interests are cognitive and affective responses to audio visual media messages and media news narratives. She has published her studies in Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Communication Research, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly and Human Communication Research. Kamhawi's role is to assist in the review of the cognitive and affective literature, design and run the social behavioral experiments and analyze the data.

Elinore Fresh, Senior Lecturer, Chinese Language Coordinator, Department of African & Asian Languages & Literatures. Elinore is responsible for direction and management of research assistants in content collection and development. In addition, she guides integration of module content into the Second China.

Franz Futterknecht, Professor of German, provides cultural feedback based on his language-based courses offering immersion in German culture. Franz is responsible for the budget related to language and culture activities.

West Bowers is a PhD student at the University of Florida' s College of Journalism and Communications. Bowers studies ways new media can be used to improve higher education. His work has recently been published in The International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.

FangFang Gao is a doctoral student of journalism in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. Her research interest includes new media, media effects and global communication.

Hyungwook Park is a Ph.D. student of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. His role in this project is to program the scripts of bots using libsecondlife (C#) and Linden Script Language (LSL) so that the visitors can interact with the bots in Second China. He received his B.S. degree in Computer Science from Korea Military Academy in 1995 and M.S. degree in Computer and Information Science and Engineering from University of Florida in 2003. He served as a senior programmer in the Republic of Korea Army Headquarters and Logistics Command until he started his Ph.D. studies at the University of Florida in 2005. His research interests are modeling and parallel simulation.

Ryan Tanay is a digital artist who recently completed his masters degree in Digital Media Art at the University of Florida. While his recent works have dealt with reactive kinetic sculpture, Ryan's experience with interactive media and the full range of digital art software lends itself to the Second Life environment. Outside of the project, Ryan has been a member of the Second Life community since 2006, and is interested in both the novel interactive space and 3D modeling tools included in the environment.

Joe Anderson received his B.S. from FSU in 2005 (cum laude) in Political Science and Asian Studies and M.A. from UF in 2008 in International Relations. He came to the project through the Department of Political Science and was responsible for generating content on China's political and military modules as well as providing biographical information for historical figures in recent Chinese history. After graduating in April he moved to the Washington, D.C. area and took a job with the federal government.

M. Alex Campbell received his B.S. from the University of Florida in 2008, and he will begin his Masters of Entertainment Technology this fall at Carnegie Mellon University. His role in this project is to setup and maintain the web presence of the project as well to construct buildings and other objects to be used in the 3D scenarios within Second Life.

Mark Caramanica is a doctoral student in the College of Journalism and Communications focusing on new media and telecommunications law and policy. He received his BA from the University of Florida in Economics, with Honors, Phi Beta Kappa. He also received his law degree and MA in Mass Communications (with distinction) from UF. During his time in law school, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the UF Journal of Technology Law & Policy and worked as a legal research assistant for the Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project. During law/graduate school, he also worked in the sports newsroom at the Gainesville Sun.
Mark is licensed to practice law before the state and federal bars of New York and worked as a commercial litigator in New York City before returning to UF to begin work on his PhD. Aside from working on the project as a web content/multimedia production coordinator and researcher, Mark is the Interim Director of the Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project and has also taught courses in mass media law at the College of Journalism and Communications.

Jung-Hwa Lee is receiving her Ph.D. in English in August 2008. She edits module content and builds web pages for the project.

Joe Qian was born in Shanghai, China and is a student at the University of Florida majoring in Political Science and minoring in East Asian languages. His professional interest lies in a number of social and political issues with regard to East Asia and Latin America including economic and social capital development. He is currently working at the World Bank in Washington D.C. on South Asia regional development. In his spare time, he is a classical pianist and enjoys traveling, playing tennis, and cooking.

Rob Scharr gathers history, society and politics-related content for the 2D modules. His research involves ethnic politics in the United States, and international relations between the United States and Northeast Asia.