User:Archivist Llewellyn

Citizenship

USA

Activities

University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

About:

• Ranked #1 university in the world

New Honors, Conference Presentations:

• Academy of Health Information Professionals (AHIP)
• CDS
• Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS)
• University of Kent, UK, 2012
• University of Cambridge, UK, 2012

New Computer Skills:

• Certificate, Artificial Intelligence (Sebastian Thrun, Peter Norvig)
• Linux/Unix
• Shell Scripting
• Python
• Regular Expressions
• mySQL
• Distributed Computing
• Science Data
• Digital Preservation
• Data Protection Act
• Digital Humanities
• WordPress
• Joomla

Projects

Neil A. Armstrong Library and Archives

Located in NASA's CoLab region in Second Life, this area exhibits records and other documentation pertaining to astronauts and space exploration throughout history.

The Neil A. Armstrong Library and Archives at NASA CoLab is the first virtual world library or archive recognized by the Library of Congress of the United States of America (ID #38392, MARC Code CaPsLAN). Its mission is to house and make available records and other documentation relating to NASA and NASA CoLab in SL. It also aims to be among the first and best repositories to use virtual world technology for enhancing the understanding of the history of science, technology and medicine by incorporating both primary and secondary source materials relating specifically to the history of aeronautics and astronautics as well as NASA’s intersections of other fields such as medicine and engineering.

Major collections include the history of women, African-Americans, and the working class in aeronautical and astronautical history, as well as the histories of Apollo 11 and Space Medicine. It covers major events and well-known figures, but the majority of the displays are designed to appeal to women and minorities. The section on female pilots—such as Amelia Earhart, Bessie Coleman (first African American pilot), Helene Dutrieu (first woman to pilot a seaplane), Harriet Quimby (first woman to fly across the English Channel), and female space pioneers like the Mercury 13, Valentina Tereshkova, and Sally Ride—is exceptionally popular. So too is the exhibit Women Working at NASA from 1943-1964, including the now famous “human computers,” and Female Aviation Employees working for organizations such as the U.S. Navy, Consolidated Aircraft, North American Aviation, Inc., and Douglas Aircraft Company. Displays include digitized, born digital, and born virtual materials. Some items were donated or created specifically for this project, including: a photo of pilot Patty Wagstaff and a replica of her flight suit, a photo of James D. Watson, Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, an original oral history interview with a Tuskegee Airman. There are 3D replicas that play historic sound recordings when touched such as Sputnik’s beeps and a replica of Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 space suit that says, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

This interactive and educational project meets requisite professional library, archival, and historical standards, and achieved tangible, compelling results outside SL via the Library of Congress, the Nobel Prize Foundation, CNN, Spaceport America. It received praise by professional librarians/archivists at renowned institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and the Smithsonian. As the Director I composed the leadership and mission statements, supervised and coordinated library volunteers, provided library/archival reference and outreach expertise, applied my knowledge of digital library standards for description, access, delivery and preservation, as well provided virtual world versions of NASA educational materials and historical publications, astronaut Twitter pages, and links to NASA web sites and NASA TV. Additionally, I lectured, published, gave tours to faculty members and visiting student groups from various institutions in the US and abroad, hosted public SL events, and monitored and communicated qualitative and quantitative feedback for the continued justification of the project.

• 2010 Linden Prize Finalist Video: YouTube

• Article about the Neil A. Armstrong Library and Archives appears on CNN website.

• Nature article: Studying the Causes of Cancer: Creating the First 3d Model of p53 in a Synthetic Immersive Environment

• The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research published Archivist's article, "The Neil A. Armstrong Library and Archives: That’s One Small Step for a Virtual World Library, One Giant Leap for Education!"

• Ongoing Project: Avatars send their names to Mars in Real Life on Curiosity, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Rover

• RL Presenter, "Send Your Avatar's Name to Mars," 13th Annual Mars Society Convention. Dayton, Ohio. (Slideshow). (YouTube 1, Youtube 2)

• RL Presenter, Lima Astronomical Society (Ohio) - http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/staging/club-view.cfm?Club_ID=162

• Location: Second Life Destintion Guide

* Images: NASA BUZZ, National Defense University-FCVW 2010, 2010 Defense Technical Information Center conference

Curiosity AI

Curiosity AI is an award-winning project that explores how artificial intelligence can communicate R&D concepts to be used in our future exploration of Mars.  

Curiosity AI was hosted on VADER2 island by US Department of Defense, US Army Research Laboratory, Simulation and Training Technology Center.

Curiosity AI, by Archivist Llewellyn, was an award-winning project that explores how artificial intelligence can communicate R&D concepts to be used in our future exploration of Mars. The project won 2nd Place in the Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge, including a check for $3,000, an engraved trophy, a ribbon, and a medallion from the DoD / US Army for "Simulation, Training & Research."

• About the contest and award: White House Announcement, Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge Website

• Curiosity AI website and video:Home Page, YouTube

• Archivist wins Honorable Mention for her Curiosity Rover in the Gogbot 2010 Singularity Art & Design Show, Netherlands.

• Mixed Reality Presenter, Sandhills Astronomical Society (North Carolina) - http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/club-view.cfm?Club_ID=1134&Print=1

* Images: Archivist with Colonel Langhauser

National Robotics Week, April 9-17, 2011

Archivist Llewellyn was a principal organizer in National Robotics Week in Second Life for The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society. Events included: presentations, tours, robot hunt, and a week-long virtual robot building competition with prizes. Hands-on classes related to building and scripting robots, and AIML basics were taught in world. Over L$100,000 were given away in prizes.

• National Robotics Week Website
• National Robotics Week Flickr Pool
• Virtual IEEE Blog
• IEEE Virtual on Twitter
• Mixed Reality Presentation - The Spotlight Internet Radio Show Audio - Part 1, Audio- Part 2, Video
• Metanomics Video

Machinima

Archivist published a Machinima Best Practices Guideline in Second Life. Her video, "Can Results from Planck Prove the Inflation Paradigm?" with physics Nobel laureate John C. Mather, received a special showing at the Nobel Museum in Sweden. Mather's research led to strong empirical support to The Big Bang Theory. After the video, Dr. Mather was a speaker to a sizable audience in Second Life at NASA e-Education island and Stella Nova. A second video, with physics Nobel laureate Albert Fert also aired on the NobelPrize.org channel. Archivist has lectured on the subject of machinima at two conferences, Innovation for Libraries in the 21st Century (2010) and the 2011 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education.

Archivist Llewellyn and Ariel Miranda chaired The National Space Society's “NSS in SL” Machinima Contest, exhibition showing, and award ceremony. The event that combined Second Life arts and sciences. Celebrating the mission of the NSS for space exploration and the technical and artistic expertise of machinima artists is what this event was about. The unprecedented machinima award ceremony saw the teaming up of two Linden Prize Finalists--Archivist Llewellyn of the Library and Archive at NASA CoLab (NASA JPL/Caltech), and Taralyn Gravois and Jayjay Zifanwe of the The University of Western Australia. The winner of the 2010 NSS in SL Machinima Contest was selected by the Executive Director of the National Space Society, Gary Barnhard. The event and videos were featured on the NSS website, the NSS magazine AdAstra, the Society's newsletter and other media outlets.

Cited in Johnson, Phylis and Mark Pettit, Machinima: The Art and Practice of Virtual Filmmaking. Jefferson, NC: Mcfarland, 2012.

Images: Nobel Museum, Archivist and Mather, Archivist and Mather in Second Life, Archivist and Fert

Fun with Science

• The BBC radio talk show Naked Scientists, hosted by physicians and researchers at Cambridge University, answers Archivist's question from Second Life: "Can Second Life avatars be controlled by thought?" Second Life location. See my earlier post: Brain-Machine Interface and Virtual Worlds - 2

• Bill Nye (The Science Guy) and Louis Friedman of The Planetary Society discuss the new NASA plan, and answer two of Archivist's questions.

• Marcia Bartusiak, Science Journalist & Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, answers Archivist's question during a mixed reality event at the Adler Planetarium.

• Science Friday, NPR. Archivist's question answered by Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute "In terms of lunar exploration, what about other countries, and what does this mean for geopolitics?" (Transcript)

• Archivist at the Virtual Feynmannfest in Second Life, featured in Discover Magazine.

• Archivist meets Professor Jim Secord, Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) and Cambridge University Professor. The Project aims to find, research and publish summaries of every letter written by or to Charles Darwin.

Biography

Archivist holds the Master in Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree and is a professional librarian and archivist. Archivist’s background includes approximately 15 years of work experience in informal education (library, archive, museum) and formal education (K-16). She is a writer, editor and presenter. She has over 50 publications in various media formats. During her graduate study for the MLIS, she completed a project relating to the history of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to obtaining her graduate degree, Archivist worked at the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum assisting with the education programming and working as a tour guide. Later, Archivist worked with the collection of one of the founding members of NACA (the precursor to NASA) located in the Oberlin College Archives. Archivist then served for a year at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as the Archivist of a living Nobel Prize winning scientist’s collection (James D. Watson, co-discoverer with Crick and Wilkens of the structure of DNA) in the area of molecular biology. This included the official compilation of his books in translation in 26 languages. She has lectured on molecular biology digital resources at the University of California, Berkeley (2007) and science archives and history at the University of Oxford (2008). She presently serves at the volunteer Director of the Library and Archives at NASA CoLab in Second Life, a public-private collaboration with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is the first library or archives in a synthetic immersive environment recognized by the Library of Congress (MARC Code: CaPsLAN). The project received various media coverage, including an article on CNN's website. Her publishing background includes Technical Reviewer (along with Brion Vibber, Chief Technical Officer, Wikimedia Foundation) for MediaWiki (O'Reilly, 2008), a best selling book in Library and Information Science Automation, and editorial duties for two books published by Cambridge University Press (2004-5) as well as three other books. Archivist’s creative approach toward digital libraries and computing can be found in Library Journal. A computer-generated video she made in Second Life received a special showing at the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, Sweden hosted by the Nobel Prize Foundation. Her 3D visualization of p53 protein using data from the Protein Data Bank was published on the website of the journal Nature. Archivist has co-presented about the library at National Defense University during the Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds conference (2010), and it also gained attention at the Defense Technical Information Center conference. She was awarded the Linden Prize "Top 10" in 2010 by Linden Lab's CEO to "formally recognize the best of-the-best" for having "greatly enhanced and changed thousands of lives around the world." Archivist chaired/organized the IEEE National Robotics Week events in Second Life. Her current project "Curiosity AI" won second place in "AI Concept Exploration" in the DoD/US Army's international 2011 Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge. Archivist was awarded a full scholarship for three years to attend the University of Cambridge in the UK, where she plans to complete her Ph.D. Additional accomplishments are noted in Marquis’ Who’s Who in American Education, Marquis’ Who’s Who of American Women, Marquis’ Who’s Who in America, and Marquis’ Who’s Who in the World.

* Images: Archivist and Nobelist James D. Watson, Archivist at NASA GRC, Archivist and Nobelist Professor Sir John Gurdon, Archivist with Cambridge HPS Department 2011, Archivist with Cambridge HPS Department 2012