Stevenson University Professor Receives Prestigious Award for Virtual Reality Work
Assistant Professor of Digital Rhetoric at Stevenson’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Amanda Licastro, was recently awarded the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations’(ADHO) Paul Fortier Prize for her paper entitled “Teaching Empathy through Virtual Reality.”
Licastro presented her paper at the highly competitive Digital Humanities Conference in Montreal where around 2,000 people competed for the honor to be named a Paul Fortier Prize winner. The award, given for the best paper by a young scholar, honors late University Distinguished Professor of French, Paul Fortier, for his long, active career in humanities.
ADHO panelists described Licastro as a trailblazer in the digital humanities field as her paper illustrated the potential of virtual reality in a teaching context.
“This project demonstrates the potential for digital humanities to foster a deeper, human understanding, specifically by focusing on and exploring the question of empathy in an educational context,” ACH representative to the ADHO awards committee, Micki Kaufman said. “The project illustrates the possibilities that innovative teaching provides as well as the power of digital humanities to foster greater social engagement and understanding through pedagogy.”
Licastro said she was stunned, but deeply honored to receive the Paul Fortier Prize. She strongly believes in Stevenson students’ and hopes to demonstrate that everyone has boundless potential as humans.
“My presentation gave me the chance to showcase the innovative ingenuity of our students, and to demonstrate the power of collaborative, project-based pedagogy,” Licastro said. “Introducing any new technology into a learning environment is risky, but I believe it is vital to prepare our students to be leaders in their chosen industries, which means making the most cutting edge tools available to them for consideration.”
Licastro added that she is an English professor, yet taught herself the skills necessary to understand digital technology and teach it to others. She encourages students to explore the unknown and learn new skills that are outside of their comfort zones.
Licastro has been with the University since 2015.
For more information on Stevenson’s Digital Humanities program, visit Stevenson.edu.
Stevenson University is the third-largest independent university in Maryland with more than 4,100 students pursuing bachelor’s, master’s, and adult bachelor’s programs at locations in Stevenson and Owings Mills.