We kicked off another cohort of Wikipedia Fellows last week. Fellows in this cohort will have the opportunity to explore contributing to areas of their choosing. We selected Fellows with a diverse set of interests so that they may contribute to and improve a wide range of Wikipedia articles. Familiar with sources in their areas of expertise, we are eager to see what kind of impact these Fellows can have on Wikipedia.
“So many people – students, faculty, anybody, everyone – use Wikipedia to get knowledge quickly that it serves everyone to have accurate, well-thought out, concise information in the articles,” said one Fellow about why they were drawn to apply.
“I have wanted to join the Wikipedia community for some time, but did not have the time to contribute in the ways I wanted. As a Wikipedia Fellow, I will be able to carve out the time to do this work because I have the support from my department and from Wiki Education.”
Wikipedia Fellows is an interdisciplinary program that engages scholars in improving Wikipedia using their subject-matter expertise. We’ve partnered with three academic associations for the initial rounds of Fellows cohorts: the American Sociological Association, the Midwest Political Science Association, and the National Women’s Studies Association. Each association is excited for their members to contribute academic research to the world’s most-accessed online source of information. And Wiki Education is excited to provide the support and tools to make that happen.
“I am a firm believer that the role of academics is to make their knowledge accessible to the public; to those outside the academy,” said another Fellow, “I cherish the opportunity to research, write, and share knowledge and information that would benefit as many people as possible.”
Meet this cohort’s Fellows:
American Sociological Association (ASA)
- Tennille Allen is Department Chair and Associate Professor at Lewis University. She is interested in improving articles that provide insight into the political, social, creative, and other contributions made by African American women as they experience crosscutting realities of gendered racism and classism.
- Srigowri Kumar is a PhD candidate at St. John’s University. She would like to contribute to articles in colonial and postcolonial history; postcolonial literature and culture; ethnic studies; studies of marginalized groups; intersectionality studies; as well as theories of race, gender, sexuality, and subject formation.
National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA)
- Nehal Elmeligy is a Graduate Assistant at the University of Cincinnati. She’s interested in improving articles related to women’s studies and Arab and Islamic feminisms.
- Rachel Gelfand recently completed a PhD at UNC Chapel Hill. As a Fellow, Rachel would like to improve articles on LGBTQ histories, with special attention to trans activists, people of color, and women.
- Polly Hoover is a Professor at Wilbur Wright College. She is interested in improving articles about women in film, particularly women in horror films, both as represented in the films and as writers and directors.
- Casey Lee is a PhD Candidate at Harvard University. Casey wants to improve articles related to Boys Love (BL) culture, a genre of male-male homoerotic fiction and art emerging from post-WWII Japanese manga culture, whose history overlaps with the development of Japan’s animation/comics/games industries, the rise of women’s voices in science fiction production and criticism, and the spread of anime/manga to Asia.
- Deana Lewis is the Assistant Director and Clinical Lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She will improve articles about the school to prison pipeline and youth incarceration, so that coverage includes recent statistics and qualitative information about Black girls’ experiences.
- Magdalena Olszanowski is a PhD candidate at Concordia University. She would like to improve articles about women artists in emerging media and music production; aging issues; and notable female and gender non-conforming figures within academia.
To read about our other two cohorts starting in June, who are improving Wikipedia’s coverage of topics related to the midterm elections, click here.
We are actively planning for additional Wikipedia Fellows cohorts in many subject areas throughout the year. For more information about how to apply, visit fellows.wikiedu.org or send an email to wikipediafellows@wikiedu.org.
