Marie-Claire Beaulieu–Project Leader–Associate Professor, Tufts University, Classical Studies
Marie-Claire Beaulieu brings expertise in classics, in particular ancient mythology and religion. In her publications, Prof. Beaulieu studies the interactions between culture, religion, and the human experience of the natural world. She is particularly interested in how the perception of landscapes and animals help shape cultures and beliefs. Her book The Sea in the Greek Imagination (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) explores the Greek representation of the sea as a cosmological space of transition between the living, the dead, and the gods. In a similar vein, she has recently led a team of international scholars in publishing a collection of essays on The Cultural History of the Sea in Antiquity, part of the broader Cultural History of the Sea series (Bloomsbury, 2021).

With the Perseids Project, Marie-Claire has engaged in many interdisciplinary teaching initiatives, in particular with the Departments of Religion and Computer Science, and her own classes make frequent use of technology to involve students in the process of research. In general, Marie-Claire is interested in fostering greater public engagement with the ancient world through the study of language, art, and myth.

Bridget Almas–State University of New York, Director of Data Innovation Strategy

Bridget Almas has over 25 years of experience working in the field of software development, in commercial, academic and non-profit environments. She is currently the Director of Data Innovation Strategy at the State University of New York. She is a founding member of the Alpheios Project, previously its Executive Director and Software Architect, and currently serving on the Board as Vice-President and Treasurer. Bridget has been a contributing member of numerous open-source projects and inititatives in the field of Digital Humanities, including the Perseus Digital Library and the Perseids Project. She has also served in leadership roles in the Research Data Alliance and on the technical committees of the Distributed Text Services and the journal Revue Humanités numériques (Digital Humanities Review). She has a Bachelors of Arts in French Studies from State University of New York at Albany.

Anthony Bucci, Lecturer, Computer Science and Technical Director, Electric Infrastructure Security Council
Anthony Bucci is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Tufts University, where he co-designed and co-taught Computational Methods for the Humanities as well as Natural Language Processing. He is also Technical Director at EIS Council, where he leads the development of a large-scale, multi-sector simulation of critical infrastructure grids. Anthony holds a B.S. in mathematics from Case Western Reserve University and a Ph.D. in computer science, with a focus on evolutionary computation, from Brandeis University. His areas of interest include evolutionary computation, specifically coevolutionary algorithms and their applications; natural language processing; and computer science education.

Anthony Bucci’s personal website

Jennifer Burton, Professor of the Practice and Filmmaker, Tufts University, Drama and Dance
Jennifer brings to this project professional filmmaking skills (from 20 years as a filmmaker with Five Sisters Productions). Her work as a filmmaker is deepened by her background in literature and history. (She earned her Ph.D. at Harvard in English and American literature and worked many years as an editor of books on history and literature.) With this project, she is excited about furthering the line of documentary work she began with the mini-doc series for Ford Motor Company (My Ford Stories), developed with a series of faculty profiles for Tufts Arts and Sciences, and featured in Five Sisters’ new documentary feature, Kings, Queens, & In-Betweens, particularly the commitment to drawing out and framing particular perspectives and stories of individuals. A key feature of Jennifer’s pedagogical practice at Tufts is the mentorship of student filmmakers.

Zachary Fletcher, Senior Software Developer, Tufts University, Classical Studies
Zachary Fletcher is the senior software developer and technical lead for The Perseids Project at Tufts University. Before coming to Tufts, he worked as a senior software developer at The Gnar Company, a Boston-based software consultancy. He has a B.S. in computer science and in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Rochester and has done coursework in Ancient Greek and Latin. With this project, he hopes to help in making the classics more accessible to the public.

Michael Reed, Professor, Tufts University, Biology
Michael Reed is an ornithologist whose research focuses on extinction risk and species conservation. He has published over 140 papers in the scientific literature and is currently working on a book on the dynamics and extinction of small populations. Most of his research focuses on identifying characteristics of bird species that put them at risk to human-caused threats, and on understanding why (or how) these characteristics put a species at risk. He has focused a fair amount on the effects of urbanization, and on wetland birds – particularly the endangered Hawaiian waterbirds, and he oversees bird research in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Dr. Reed has served on the governing boards of the American Ornithologists’ Union (and testified before a congressional subcommittee on their behalf), and the Society of Conservation Biology. He serves (or served) on science advisory committees for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Massachusetts Audubon Society, consulted for the National Academy of Sciences, taught conservation biology to scientists in Belarus on behalf of the World Bank, and he currently serves on the board of trustees for Manomet (a science-based sustainability organization whose roots are in bird ecology and conservation). He is also the faculty advisor for the Tufts Ornithological Society. When not doing research on birds, Dr. Reed can be found outdoors, birding.

Students

Qinghan (Juliet) Yue, 2018 (Tufts University, Computer Science BS)

Vishwesh Srinivasan, 2023 (Tufts University, MS in Data Analytics)

Research Interns (Funded by VERSE-Leadership Alliance)

Summer 2019: Matthew Hayden (Howard University)

Summer 2020: Matthew Hayden, Klyn Jones (Howard University)

Summer 2021: Klyn Jones, Sarena Straughter, Nya Jeter (Howard University)

Summer 2022: Abigail Sanchez (Whittier College), Rahmah Abdulkarim (Howard University)