Bio and Project Contribution

I am Christian Condo Gilkes, a recent graduate from DePauw University with a scholarly background in the history discipline. Pursuing a graduate education in Digital Humanities means leveraging the expertise developed during my time in undergraduate studies. Majoring in history resulted in the completion of five research experiences, including a senior thesis and a joint-study project with an art course. My undergraduate background is not solely concentrated around history since I have also taken courses in physics and data visualization. These academic experiences ultimately led to personal concentrations on general access to digital historical knowledge, as well as the various ways history topics are represented on the internet.  

As Research Lead in the “AI Hallucinations” project, I am responsible for research efforts in attaining the scholarship needed to curate a database that details AI representations of recollected/published Puerto Rican history. Furthermore, that entails discovering unique directions of attaining the information needed for constructing the essential database(s). This is, overall, an opportunity to examine how history is studied by AI-generative algorithms while leveraging my prior experiences, and seeing what the results could mean for the overall study of past human experiences. 

Bio + Contribution

Aaron Helton (he/him) is an Information Management Officer at the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library where he manages library systems development and cloud infrastructure. He holds both a B.S. and M.S. in Information Systems and is pursuing a M.A. in Digital Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center. His current research interests include literary and game studies, as well as digital narratives, with an emphasis on how they inform and are informed by pedagogy, especially from a multilingual perspective.

He serves as co-manager for the Voces del Lunfardo / Voices of Lunfardo project, for which he provides primary technical support and secondary writing and editing. He is mainly responsible for system development, design, deployment, maintenance, data management, and disaster prevention and recovery for the site.

Bio and Contribution

Naila Butt (she/her) is a Digital Media Specialist and tutor at CUNY City Tech Writing Center. She holds a BS in Professional and Technical Writing and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Digital Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she explores her research interests in play theory, game studies, and pedagogy. 

She is the project manager of the Pretty Terrifying Project (working name), which she founded to collect data on recurring feminist themes and structures within the horror video game genre. She builds on feminist and horror/game studies frameworks to examine video games, which are often underexamined as cultural and media artifacts. Her methods involve web-scraping data from Wikipedia, Category: Horror video games, and conducting both distant and close reads to collect and categorize the data. In collaboration with her team, Naila aims to refine the dataset and create visualizations that help translate and interpret its complex findings, opening new avenues of study and data for feminist, games, and media scholarship.

Bio and Contribution

Hey folks, a little about me, I’ve been in the education field for approximately a decade now. I always find it crazy just how quickly time flies. Originally, I was doing a lot of graphic design work, which is what my undergrad degree is in. As I continued down this path, it just didn’t exactly feel right for me. Traditional graphic design work entails a lot of marketing, UI design, print design etc. All of this was a great experience, but it wasn’t for me. Having to essentially use my skills to help sell products or promote things wasn’t my calling. I felt my work had no meaningful impact other than generating profit. Through a bit of networking and some luck, I was able to use my skills over a few years within accessibility throughout CUNY. Using my graphic design skills to have an impact on those areas that needed a little more love, that was the spark that interested me. Eventually, as I continued to work my way around CUNY, working with both faculty and students, I stumbled across the worldful world of instructional design. Here I can focus all the essentially random skillsets I’ve acquired over the years and, behind the scenes help make education a little better for our students.

As for my role within our project, I will be the one assisting in putting together our visual design. Helping to figure out how we may best get our message across visually. My current goal is to try to present our project as simply and clear as possible. Then, should time permit, maybe we can try to push the boundary a bit and put a little bit of chaos for fun.

Personal Bio & Project Contribution

Hi! I’m Sasha Richardson. I am currently pursuing an M.A. in Digital Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center. My academic roots are in Computer Science and Business Analytics which gave me a solid foundation in both the technical and analytical sides of data. This led to some great early experiences working in data roles at places like Madison Square Garden and ING Financial Services. Recently, I transitioned from the corporate industry into the academic research space. Now, I work as a Research Assistant for CUNY’s ICORP program at Medgar Evers College. There, I get to mentor students in quantitative data analysis, design data tracking tools for program evaluation, and help develop curriculum to prepare students for graduate school. My research interests center on public interest technology, critical AI studies, and using data visualization to explore systemic issues like gentrification and environmental equity.

On the AI “Hallucinations” Project, I am serving as both the Project Manager and the Technical/Dev Lead. As the project manager, my goal is to keep our vision consistent, translate our ideas into concrete next steps, and track our schedule. On the development side, I am responsible for our code architecture, managing the GitHub repository, and writing the technical documentation. I am also really excited to be building the interactive user interface and searchable database that will eventually serve as our project website.

bio + contributor statement

I feel awkward about going into talk of myself with no preamble. So here are some lines. I notice how most people work around this shyness but referring to themselves in the third person. Like this: Michelle Santiago Cortés is a writer and editor living and working in New York… But once I get to the second half of most of the bios I’ve been asked to write, the first person feels more authoritative and immediate. But enough of that. The bio:

My name is Michelle Santiago Cortés. I am freelance writer and editor working in art and technology criticism. I regularly write for New York Magazine, ArtReview and work as a contributing editor for Lux magazine. I earned my B.S. in Magazine Journalism from Boston University in 2018, and have since worked in art publishing and digital media, writing any and all kinds of blogs, articles, features, essays and interviews. This extends into in-depth knowledge of distribution channels and techniques like SEO, newsletter, social media, and print. As an editor, I work primarily with artists and other “non-writers” to help them take small steps into public writing. My primary research interest is technology criticism (the history and practice of) and extends into art, theory and experimental publishing.

For the AI Hallucinations Project, I am taking lead on all things outreach and promotion. I mostly earn a living as an internet culture and technology critic, and will lean on almost ten years of connections and insights. My work — whatever shape it takes — is dedicated to promoting critical discourse around technology and emerging media. The AI Hallucinations Project, in a sense, is a work of tech criticism and it will be promoted to audiences with documented interest in such discourses. I am mostly drawing from what I learned in my self-publishing practice by targeting the online communities and distribution channels that offer a direct line to “our people,” leveraging word-of-mouth, as a way of building a community that will eventually gather around a more traditional platform like an Instagram profile, in addition to the website.

Truly’s Bio and Contribution

I’m Truly Johnson. I got an undergrad degree in computer science at Hunter College, and I currently work as a software engineer. I’m still in the process of figuring out my exact research interests, but I generally want to look into 1. the particular mainstream technology and media culture of the present moment and how people deconstruct that as they create art and community on the margins, and 2. how people similarly chafed against dominant views in the past, especially through non-standard expressions of identity and queerness, and how that might inspire and inform people now.

My responsibilities on this project are mainly focused on the technical aspects of the work. I will put together the website, assist with creating digital data visualizations, and set up online hosting for the project. In addition, I’ll assist with research and writing documentation and supplementary materials. I’m excited to both apply skills I have experience in and learn and experiment with new skills through the course of this project.

The AI “Hallucination” Project Work Plan

Project Scope Statement

The AI “Hallucination” Project is a semester-long digital humanities research initiative about how large language models distort or erase the histories of marginalized communities. The project will produce two parallel annotated datasets — one focused on 19th to 20th century Black history (BKED) and another on 19th to 20th century Puerto Rican history— generated by running structured query prompts across GPT-5, Gemini, and Claude AI models and subjecting outputs to systematic human fact-checking and annotation. The final deliverables are a public-facing explorable website cataloguing hallucination instances by type and community, and a white paper documenting methodology, data collection procedures, and findings. The project is scoped for one semester, with all deliverables completed by May 1, 2026.

Scoping and Scheduling the Work

Translating the project’s conceptual goals into a concrete, time-bound work plan has been one of the more clarifying exercises of the semester so far. The Gantt chart we developed maps the full arc of the project across four broad phases: pre-production and outreach, dataset development, analysis and development, and final production. Each phase carries its own dependencies and risks, and understanding how they connect is essential to keeping the project on track.

The pre-production phase, running from late February through mid-March, focuses on establishing the structural and logistical foundations the rest of the project depends on. This includes finalizing the Project Work Plan and Data Management Plan, conducting an outreach and distribution strategy discussion, and beginning early community-facing work such as scheduling a consultation with a GCDI fellow and preparing promotional materials for a NYC Open Data Week presentation. In parallel, development of the project website skeleton (comprising the About, Methods, and placeholder Search Interface pages) begins on March 10th, with a dependency on the Designer/UX role providing sufficiently finalized design direction beforehand.

The dataset development phase constitutes the methodological core of the project. Beginning March 17th, the team will collaboratively draft approximately forty-five (45) query prompts drawn from verified Puerto Rican historical sources. Prompt writing is followed by a split execution strategy: The first fifty percent of raw model queries will be run between March 24th and 27th, at which point the Research Lead will review and approve the outputs before the full batch proceeds. This checkpoint is an intentional quality control measure, designed to catch errors in prompt design or model behavior before they propagate across the entire dataset. The second half of the query execution is scheduled for April 10th through 14th, immediately following spring break, allowing the team to return to the work with fresh perspective and sufficient time for the intensive annotation and verification work that follows.

The post-spring break period from mid-to-late April is the most logistically demanding phase of the project, with several parallel workstreams converging in a short window. Between April 13th and 17th, with advice from the research lead, the team will build a fact-checking and annotation workflow, compile and clean the verified dataset, and flag hallucination instances with accompanying notes. These tasks are largely sequential and directly gate the development work that follows: comparative hallucination rate charts cannot be built, and data visualizations cannot be integrated into the website, until both datasets are clean and verified. The design and UX role will additionally advise on chart style and color palette during this period, ensuring visual consistency across the archive. During this team, public-facing distribution and outreach strategies will launch: These will include strategic dissemination of the website URL and accompanying platform marketing efforts  — an Instagram page, Substack newsletter, or Are.na channel — depending on what’s decided in the development of the distribution strategy.

The final production phase runs from April 25th through May 1st and involves simultaneous completion of the project’s three major deliverables: testing and deploying the final website, populating and finalizing the explorable database on the live site, and writing the technical sections of the white paper (including methodology, data collection, and findings).

A Pretty Terrifying Work Plan!

Here’s our plan for this project! Generally, the journey of this project involves starting by further augmenting and analyzing our dataset, then creating the website and the visualizations that will live there, then iterating on and improving our work, while also engaging in outreach and developing presentations and supplementary materials. The week-by-week breakdown is as follows.

Week 1:

2/26 – 3/5

  • Divide into 3 sections and review which data points may be missing and require additional evaluation. (Truly: rows 2-32, Michael: rows 33-63, Naila: 64-94)
    • Review how Barbara Creed’s frameworks apply to the video games in the dataset
    • How is the monstrous feminine theory, and how does it apply to the horror video games genre
  • Team to add notes and comments directly to the Google Sheet version of the dataset, and to any other notes in our team document.
  • Look for patterns and connections, and think about ideas for visualizations.

Week 2:

3/5 – 3/12

Truly

  • Deploy the website via GitHub

Michael & Naila

  • Tie up loose ends in the dataset review and continue thinking about data visualizations/potential platforms.
  • Find other video game analyses on the internet. What does the game studies ecosystem look like?

 

Week 3: 

3/12 – 3/19

Michael

  • Website wireframe

Naila

  • Decide on outreach platforms and begin outreach – show what the project will look like

Truly

  • Work on drafting data visualizations

Week 4:

3/19 – 3/26

Truly

  • Code website skeleton
  • Begin working on website documentation

Naila

  • Revise data visualizations
  • Additional research as needed

Michael

  • Revise data visualizations
  • Additional research as needed

 

Week 5 & 6 (spring break)

3/26 – 4/16

Break time and/or time to catch up on tasks. TBD.

 

Week 7:

4/16 – 4/23

  • Finalize the name
  • Prepare slides and presentation
  • Website content drafting
  • UI and other visual assets

Project presentation day (Tuesday, 04/21)

 

Week 8:

4/23 – 4/30

  • Test and improve website accessibility.

Truly:

  • User test and debug the website, and add any additional web content
  • Ensure both the deployed site and the static copy of the site

Michael & Naila

  • Revise front-end (written) content

 

Week 9:

4/30 – 5/7

  • Prepare for the public project presentation
  • Working on slides and doing team rehearsal
  • Dress Rehearsal (5/7/2026)

 

Week 10 & 11

5/7 – 5/21

  • Revision on all fronts.
  • Final outreach push leading up to the project launch
  • More TBD.
  • Public project launch at GC Digital Showcase (5/21)

Work Plan for “The Voices of Lunfardo”

This project will proceed in three phases. Participants will meet every Wednesday through Zoom meetings. Phase 1 will last three weeks (March 5-26). In this phase, the members of the team will finalize the system selection and installation. They will complete the collection of terms and develop the narratives corresponding to each term. In phase 2 (April 2-16), the members will create term pages and prepare brief biographical profiles. Finally, in phase 3 (April 23-May 7), the participants will start a preliminary outreach, revise and customize the site, and conduct  a full project rehearsal. On May 14, the team will present the project at the GD Digital showcase.

Phase 1 (March 5-26)

During the first phase, the team will meet on Wednesdays in one-hour long Zoom meetings. By March 5, the group will finalize the system selection and complete the compilation of terms. By March 12, Aaron will procure system hosting and prepare a preliminary interface design, while Natalia will write the narratives of seven terms.  By March 19, Natalia will conclude the term narratives, while Aaron will install and configure the system. At the weekly Zoom meetings, the team will discuss the progress on the interface and the narratives. Aaron will provide feedback on the narratives; Natalia will provide feedback on the interface. By March 26, Aaron will review the system configuration, while Natalia will revise and edit the term narratives. They will both start conducting initial outreach.

Phase 2 (April 2-16)

During this phase, the team will enter term pages and write their biographical narratives. They will continue holding weekly Zoom meetings during which participants will review details and offer feedback on project progress. By April 2, 5 term pages will be completed and entered into the system. By April 9, the group will enter five additional terms. Finally, by April 16, the team will complete the entry of all terms as well as the biographical narratives. 

Phase 3 (April 23-May 7)

During the last phase, the group will continue meeting via Zoom. The participants will focus on outreach activities. The week of April 23, the team will continue with outreach of the provisional site. Aaron will revise the system, while Natalia will revise the narratives. By April 30, the team will start outreach of the final site, while Aaron will focus on customization, with particular attention to the site’s visual design and user interface. Finally, by May 7 the group will conduct a full project rehearsal. On May 14, the project will be presented at the GC Digital Showcase.