Project Lead

Tessa Farmer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Global Studies Program at the University of Virginia. Her first book, Well-Connected: Everyday Water Practices in Cairo (2023), focuses on water and wastewater in Cairo, Egypt. She has a second book manuscript and digital project underway on charitable water fountains, called sabīls, that are an important part of the built environment and moral ecology of Cairo, and an ongoing research collaboration with the Athar Lina Initiative on water reuse and urban agriculture in the al-Khalifa neighborhood of Cairo. Her research has been awarded funding by Fulbright Hayes and Fulbright Scholar, Social Science Research Council, PEO, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Virginia. Tessa’s work appeared in the Middle East Law and Governance Journal, the Journal of Sustainability Education, Anthropology News, MERIP, the edited volume Challenging Global Development: Towards Decoloniality and Justice, and she co-guest edited a special issue on the Environment in the Middle East in the International Journal of Middle East Studies with Jessica Barnes.

Website: https://www.tessafarmer.org

Team

University of Virginia

Arin Bennett

Arin is a visualization specialist focused on the display, manipulation, and interaction of three-dimensional data using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies. He is a part of the Scholars' Lab as well as the Digital Humanities Center (DHC) of the University of Virginia Library. For Digital Sabīls, he is consulting on the use of technologies including 360 cameras and 3D scanning.

Lisa Blackmore

As the Faculty Director of the Digital Humanities Center (DHC), Lisa provides intellectual leadership and identifies new strategic initiatives for the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities and the Scholars’ Lab. She is also a Professor of Spanish with a background in modern languages, Latin American cultural studies, and environmental humanities. She provides support for the Digital Sabīls project by contributing to discussions around content, navigability, and opportunities for public dissemination.

Shayne Brandon

Shayne is the systems administrator for the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), part of the Digital Humanities Center of the University of Virginia Library. He maintains the server space for the Digital Sabīls project website.

Dimitri Kastritsis

Dimitri is the Librarian for Global Studies, Classics, Middle East and South Asia at the University of Virginia Library. He serves as liaison to the Global Studies program, the Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures, and the Department of Classics. He is also an active researcher in premodern and Middle Eastern history. He is collaborating with Tessa Farmer on an annotated bibliography of scholarship pertaining to sabīls.

Drew MacQueen

Drew consults with faculty, staff, and students on GIS (geographic information systems) for the Scholars' Lab and Digital Humanities Center in the UVA Library. He is assisting Tessa Farmer with data collection and map visualization using ArcGIS Survey123 and ArcGIS Online.

Lauren Massari

Lauren is the multimedia designer for the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), part of UVA Library’s Digital Humanities Center. She collaborates with IATH fellows on research projects with spatial elements, particularly 3D architectural visualization. She is serving as project manager and web designer for Digital Sabīls.

Sarah Wells

Sarah is Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) and has nearly 30 years of experience developing and supporting digital humanities projects. She oversees the administration and development of Digital Sabīls both within IATH and the larger digital humanities ecosystem at UVA.

Cairo

Hossam Gad

Hossam is a researcher in history and historical anthropology with the participatory conservation initiative Athar Lina. Hossam holds a master's degree in Mamluk history from the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University and is a recipient of the "New Generation" fellowship from the Arab Council for the Social Sciences in Beirut. Hossam has participated in a variety of foundational courses in historical writing and oral history techniques, as well as workshops on social science theories, urban studies, and the methodological foundations for reading and analyzing historical documents (Mamluk and Ottoman). He facilitates workshops on the history of Cairo and its social life, in addition to training sessions on oral history techniques. Hossam has conducted extensive research on urban issues in Historic Cairo for academic, journalistic, and civil society audiences. He has developed skills in ethnography and documenting oral history narratives from the residents of Historic Cairo (Khalifa and the Imam al-Shafi'i Cemetery).

Athar Lina

Athar Lina ('The Heritage is Ours') is a participatory conservation initiative working on heritage restoration and conservation alongside community members in Historic Cairo.

Website: https://atharlina.com/projects/