Director
Jessica FitzPatrick (PhD) is a Teaching Associate Professor in the English Department. She conducts research at the confluence of spatial studies, digital storytelling, world literature, and speculative fiction. She regularly teaches courses about Narrative and Technology and Digital Media, and she directs the Digital Narrative and Interactive Design (DNID) major. Her current projects include digital and public humanities ventures like the Secret Pittsburgh Digital Guidebook, which exhibits student-generated explorations of Pittsburgh sites and stories. In her role as Digital Media Lab director, she is tasked with developing capacity among faculty and graduate students in digital research and pedagogy, building undergraduate programming, fostering collaborative digital projects, and participating in wider digital initiatives in the humanities. Read more about FitzPatrick and her work here.
Lab Assistants
Khushboo Bhutani is a PhD student in Film and Media Studies and English at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her BA and MA in English Literature from the University of Delhi. She completed her MPhil in Cinema Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Having previously worked on trauma studies and transnational cinema, her research interests further include the study of emergent media infrastructures in distinct geopolitical settings, and the relationship between conflict and different screens.
Gissell Del Castillo is a PhD student in the English Department at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing in rhetoric and composition. Her research incorporates digitality, corpus analysis, and programming as methods and tools for studying writing, literacy, and pedagogy. She earned both her BA and MA in English from Florida International University, where she focused her research on the impact of written narratives and literacy in prisons. She has teaching experience in K–12 classrooms and correctional education which often shapes her commitment to public writing, community, and education in nontraditional settings.
These lab assistants provide support for teaching digital tools and methods. They also organize events and opportunities promoting the innovative work students and teachers are doing in English.
Interested in working with the Lab as a graduate student? Arrange a consultation with the lab Director using the link in the homepage or send inquiries to JLF115@pitt.edu with the subject line “Lab Assistant.”
Undergraduate Lab Assistants
2025 - 2026: TBD
Contingent on funding, the English department is able to hire an undergraduate student worker to help supervise the Digital Media Lab during its open hours, support Lab events, and assist faculty and students with technological issues that arise in using Lab facilities. There are also opportunities for those interested in lab management and digital educational programming as an intern, compensated with course credit. For more information about current or future opportunities, please send inquiries to JLF115@pitt.edu with the subject line “Undergraduate Lab Assistant.”