Information Arts & Technologies

Kathleen Austin (Senior Lecturer; DCD, University of Baltimore)
Instructor in the BS in Simulation & Digital Entertainment program, Professor Austin is an award winning educator and published learning game developer. She is a nationally recognized curriculum developer in computer game design programs. Her assignment includes video game and simulation programming as well as Web development courses in the Information Arts & Technologies division. Current projects include liaison with Maryland State Department of Education Affilate Provider program and advisor to the Baltimore County Public Schools Learning in a Virtual Environment (L.i.V.E.) initiative.

Nancy Kaplan (Professor; Ph.D., Cornell University)
Director of the School of Information Arts and Technologies. An award-winning developer of educational software and internationally recognized expert on digital literacy, Professor Kaplan teaches courses in information architecture, hypermedia development, and usability methods. She is the Principal Investigator for a three-year, NSF funded project investigating the roles young teens should play in the development of technologies for their age cohort.

Mohammed Ketel (Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Polytechnic University)
Professor Ketel currently teaches in the areas of networking, operating system administration and support, and computer security. His research interests include distributed wireless networks, internet technologies, and soft computing.

Jeffrey Livermore (Associate Professor; Ph.D., Nova University)

Aaron Oldenburg (Assistant Professor, M.F.A., University of Maryland)
Aaron Oldenburg is a game designer and new media artist whose primary interest is in game rules as an expressive medium. His video and interactive work has exhibited in festivals and galleries in New York, Berlin, São Paulo and Los Angeles, including SIGGRAPH and FILE Electronic Language International Festival. He currently works on physical computing projects, designing new interfaces and electronic sculptures. He teaches game design and 3D animation as an Assistant Professor in the Simulation and Digital Entertainment program and has an MFA from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Anastasia Salter (Visiting Assistant Professor; DCD., University of Baltimore) University)
Faculty in the BS in Simulation & Digital Entertainment program, Professor Salter teaches courses on game design, social media and simulations. Her primary research is on digital narratives with a continuing focus on virtual worlds, gender and cyberspace, games as literature, educational games and fan production.

Kathryn Summers (Associate Professor; Ph.D., Texas Christian University)
Widely published in both traditional and new-media rhetoric, Professor Summers teaches user research, information design, technical communication, and rhetorical approaches to information systems. Her current projects include a major new textbook on Web usability.

Cecelia Wright Brown (Assistant Professor, D.Eng. Morgan State University)

Lucy Holman (DCD, University of Baltimore; MSLS, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Lucy Holman is currently the Director of Langsdale Library. She teaches Research Methods, Information Architecture and Humans, Computers and Cognition in the graduate program. Her research interests include the search and information retrieval patterns of college students, educational uses of social media and reading strategies. She also consults with libraries on the usability of their websites and search tools.

Natalie Burclaff (Librarian; MLIS, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
Natalie Burclaff is a reference and instruction librarian and teaches information literacy as semester long course in addition to short library instruction sessions tailored to individual course projects and student research needs. Her research interests include marketing and advocacy in libraries, access policies, and social media influence on information literacy.

Catherine Johnson (MSLIS, Syracuse University)
Catherine Johnson is a librarian and the Coordinator of Library Instruction at Langsdale Library. She teaches library instruction sessions as well as courses in information literacy. Her research interests include how cognitive development affects students’ ability to learn information literacy, how information literacy can best be integrated into the university curriculum and effective pedagogies for information literacy instruction.

Peter Ramsey (Reference/Instruction Librarian; MSLS, UNC Chapel Hill)
A member of the Reference and Instruction team in Langsdale Library, Mr. Ramsey also offers course-related instruction for students in a variety of disciplines and teaches IDIS 110, a three-credit course on information literacy for first-year students. Mr. Ramsey’s research interests have recently focused on the adoption and use of web technology for collaboration. However, as a reference librarian he particularly enjoys assisting others in developing their own ideas and improving their research processes.

Mike Kiel (Reference/Instruction Librarian)
Mike Kiel has always been an avid reader which some said in retrospect made librarianship an obvious career path, but his journey to the field was not a direct one. Though he ultimately obtained a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Maryland, College Park he has taken a number of courses in music, dance, math, English, history, engineering, and all three of the primary sciences. Mike is very interested in how individuals acquire knowledge and decide which sources to use and trust. He is also interested in issues related to transparency and access to information, which led to his focus on government documents and information related issues.

Michael Shochet (MLS, University of Maryland. MA, Northwestern University)
Michael Shochet is the Head of Reference at Langsdale Library. His interests include many aspects of information literacy, including evaluating sources and effective design for slideware presentations.