With such a fabulous group of undergraduates working with us, it was a natural outreach to transition their various forms of paid and volunteer work into an umbrella internship formally dubbed the CISA3 Undergraduate Research Innovation Internship, abbreviated down to the fabulous acronym of the CURII- because they are all choc full of exciting enthusiasm and CURIosity, and of course as an homage to the fabulous multispectral research of Marie CURIe. ;)

 

 

Initially the CURIIs were recruited directly from field work in Jordan in 2011 and were those who continued to work on related CISA3 projects after our return to the states.

The initial round of CURIIs included:

Leah Trujillo –who worked on laser scanning, point cloud processing, 3D visualization for education outreach, public archaeology education. Leah also volunteered with local school groups-creating a variety of awesome science, technology, and archaeology lesson plans. Leah participated in both the UCSD Undergraduate Research Conference and the UCSD Faculty Mentorship Program and Conference. After graduation in June of 2012, Leah was a paid researcher for the Sandcastles for Science project and then an official staff member of the 2012 UCSD Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project as lead photography supervisor. She was also my fabulous assistant during the CISA3 laser scanning excursion to Petra.

Jessica Linback explored the marvelous and terrifying realms of metadata and 3D databasing standards to refine the CISA3 laser scanning archiving practices. After graduation in June of 2012, Jessica volunteered on the Sandcastles for Science project, and then served as an official staff member of the 2012 UCSD Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project as the Mistress of the Dirty Lab.

Annie Jessup worked to catalog and digitize a compelling archive of flint tools from the Levant region- resulting in her identification of a new flint form. Annie participated in both the UCSD Undergraduate Research Conference and the UCSD Faculty Mentorship Program and Conference.

James Morgan Darling, Senior CURII- went from work on structured light scanning and cognitive analysis of ancient Indian Bronzes for the UCSD Faculty Mentorship Program and 2012 Calit2 Summer Scholar to lead several teams on cognitive design for cultural heritage visualization systems. After graduation in June of 2013, he transitioned to a paid position as a researcher at CISA3/Calit2 and directed his projects towards cognitive design of museum interaction technologies, culminating in a survey of Florence’s museums in the Fall of 2013.

and Ross Davison, who helped finish out the point cloud data processing from the 2011 Jordan season and conducted a survey into archaeologist’s familiarity with laser scanning technology–all remotely from his senior year at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After graduation, he transitioned to a lead position at CyArk.

After the Fall 2012 Jordan trip, the largest group of CURIIs evolved, and included:

Savannah Shifrin– who transitioned from archaeological illustration digitization work on the metadata from both seasons of Jordan, to work on a database of comparative digital heritage organizations.

Aliya Hoff, Lead CURII, who deftly transitioned from her role coordinating the human remains from the 2012 Jordan season and as my research assistant working on underwater archaeological visualization comparatives and aide at the first UCSD Underwater Archaeology conference in January of 2013 to work on a series of projects, including a faculty mentoship, a stint as a 2013 Calit2 Summer Scholar working with Jules Jaffe and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and as the recipient of an REU grant in International Networking to work with Calit2 professor Tom DeFanti on CAVECam stereoscopic cultural heritage imaging.

Lillian Wakefield – an environmental chemist of extraordinary skill– took up the challenge of comparative pastel analysis under CISA3 graduate student Samantha Stout and as a 2013 Calit2 Summer Scholar.

Jonathon Eliashiv lent his talents to a research project investigating site deformation at underwater archaeological sites.

Brigitte McGovern channeled her fabulous creativity into volunteering with local schools and concocting a science education coloring book on archaeology and cultural heritage diagnostics.

Rebecca Asch conducted the preliminary background research into CISA3’s proposals to work with San Diego’s Balboa Park.

Kat Huggins transitioned from her gorgeous work as the Lead Archaeological Illustrator on the Jordan 2012 season to a faculty mentorship investigating Bronze Age iron molds.

Calit2 published coverage of the summer 2013 CURII in celebration of some of their outstanding work. Check it out here.

And eventually, the program expanded to include a wide variety of UCSD students working on cognitive science, structural engineering, and computer visualization projects. More soon on these CURIIS.

And the program branched out to include a few high school students over the summer as Pre-CURII interns.