REACH students in collaboration with the project supervisor will have the opportunity to select and work from a variety of collections, such as the Looking At Art Records, a non-profit organization whose mission was to foster dialogue on the contemporary art scene in Texas; the Marvin Zindler Papers, Houston media personality and consumer advocate, who’s files contain the famed Rat and Roach reports in which he would investigate and report on area businesses and coin the catchphrase “Slime in the Ice Machine”; or the incarcerated women and artists that created a variety of works and drawings from the Women For Justice Records.

REACH students will learn and engage in how to do primary source research, performing the processes of archival arrangement and description, conducting historical research and writing on the selected collection or topic, and curating a physical and/or digital exhibit based on the archival items selected during the project. Work on the project will be performed onsite within Special Collections located in the M.D. Anderson Library.

Contacts

• Vince Lee: velee@uh.edu

In 2026, Houston’s East End will mark two important milestones: the bicentennial of Harrisburg’s founding and the centennial of Milby High School. Both are integral to our region and have a rich history, but they remain largely absent from the local historical record. Harrisburg predates Houston and may have superseded it if not for a twist of fate. It sits on the Houston Ship Channel, which is the heart of Houston’s economy. Milby opened as a segregated white school during a period of explosive population growth, but the community’s demographics have changed dramatically since that time.

This project will combine historical research with oral histories to tell the stories of the people who live, work, and go to school in the Harrisburg area and at Milby to mark these anniversaries. Thus, REACH student researchers will delve into and write about the community. One method we will use in our research is oral history, which has a long and successful tradition of documenting the human and community experience across time. Students will conduct oral histories with community members and Milby alumni about their experiences and assist in organizing events for that purpose. This work will culminate in an article for publication in the Houston History magazine.

Contacts

• Debbie Harwell: dzharwel@central.uh.edu

The Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Program’s US Latino Digital Humanities (USLDH) program serves as a venue for scholarship focused on the US Latino written legacy that has been lost, absent, repressed or underrepresented. The USLDH program provides a physical space for the development, support and training in digital humanities projects using a vast collection of historical newspapers, photographs and digital materials; creates opportunities and facilities for digital publication of Latino-based projects and scholarship; promotes and fosters interdisciplinary scholarly work; provides a communal virtual space to share knowledge and projects related to Latino digital humanities; and establishes a Latino digital humanities hub.

REACH students will work with Latino archival materials in different capacities from handling and arrangement of historical collections to digital projects of the recovered items that include manuscripts, photographs, newspapers, correspondence, etc. The students will receive training in archival procedures, digital humanities tools and theory.

Contacts

• Lorena Gauthereau: lgauthereau@uh.edu
• Gabriela Baeza Ventura: gbaeza@central.uh.edu
• Carolina Villarroel: cvillarroel@uh.edu
• Website: https://artepublicopress.com/projects/

Ancient coins have a tremendous story to tell about the past. This is especially the case for Syria, whose diverse citizens celebrated their communities with bilingual inscriptions and dynamic images – even after being conquered by Greek and Roman empires. Come join SYRIOS, a digital humanities project that tells these stories to a public audience through a virtual exhibit. Interactive narratives, 3D coin scans, and animations make these artifacts come alive and speak for the people who made and used them.

As a research assistant, you will help test the effectiveness of the project with its different audiences through user experience (UX) research. Additionally, you will assist in ongoing research on the topic of "data humanism" (the study of data not simply as numbers, but what it actually signifies: knowledge, behaviors, people). You will also gain technical skills and participate in a collaborative team process.

Contacts

• Peggy Lindner: plindner@central.uh.edu
• Liz Rodwell: erodwell@central.uh.edu
• SYRIOS site: https://syrios.uh.edu/

What could seem more concrete, yet difficult to pin down, than the notion of a “year”? This project aims to convey some of the surprises of thinking through 1771, a single year in the literature and culture of the eighteenth-century British empire, as it was experienced by writers in three distinct locations: London, Edinburgh, and Philadelphia. And yet this single year, when viewed from the perspective of three major cities of the British Atlantic world, contains multitudes as well as an encyclopedic assortment of writing. The writings of this year, now increasingly digitized, are now available for inquiry and analysis in ways unimaginable to scholars even a few decades ago. These approaches should help us learn how to tell new stories about the authors and printers of this year, the genres they produced, and their responses to the year’s events.

The 1771 team is seeking student research assistants for its ongoing digital humanities project, which has already resulted in one collaboratively authored, peer-reviewed scholarly article and a forthcoming website to accompany its findings. The position will entail data entry and cleaning, along with some scholarly and editorial work associated with the project dataset and accompanying website. Though previous experience in digital research is not necessary, desirable candidates will be quick studies, good problem solvers, detail-oriented, and comfortable with technology.

Contacts

• David Mazella: mazella@central.uh.edu
• Article: "All the modes of story": Genre and the Gendering of Authorship in the Year 1771"