Meet the Mapping Freedom 2024 Team

  • Co-Principal Investigator

    Elizabeth La Beaud is the Interim Head of Library Technology for the University of Southern Mississippi and the Interim Director of the Mississippi Digital Library.

    She holds a MLIS, a certificate in Archives and Special Collections, the Digital Archives Specialist certificate from the Society of American Archivists, and is a Library of Congress trained Digital Preservation Topical Trainer. She served on the National Digital Stewardship Alliance’s (NDSA) Levels of Preservation Revision Subgroup and the Levels of Preservation Implementation Subgroup. Elizabeth specializes in digital preservation, project planning and implementation, and copyright as it pertains to digital collections.

  • Co-Principal Investigator

    A Mississippi native, Dr. Aleise McGowan is an Assistant Professor for Cybersecurity & Information Technology in USM’s School of Computing Science and Engineering.

    McGowan received her Ph.D. in computing from the University of South Alabama, an M.S. in Management Information Systems with a Dual Concentration in IT Management and Information Security from University of Alabama at Birmingham, and her B.S. in Management Information Systems from USM. Her research includes information security, data mining, machine learning, consumer engagement, and persuasive technology.

    In addition to over two decades of information technology work experience, she is active as an advisor and mentor. McGowan is the co-founder of Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) Northern Alabama Affiliate, treasurer of WiCyS Global’s Neurodiversity Affiliate, Assistant Chief Learning Officer for Black Girls Hack, and is active in Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. While at USM, she serves as USM’s WiCyS student chapter’s faculty advisor, works with the Mississippi Alliance of the National Center for Women and Information Technology’s Aspirations in Computing program, and performs as a research mentor to students in the Louis Stokes Mississippi Alliance for Minority Participation (LSMAMP).

    Outside of work, McGowan enjoys spending time cooking, reading, and enhancing her red teaming skills. She and her husband have two children and a dog named Cooper.

  • Personnel

    Kayla Stan, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Geography in USM’s School of Biological, Environmental, and Earth Sciences, transplanted straight from Canada.

    Stan received her MSc from the University of Alberta, and her Ph.D. jointly between the University of Alberta in Canada and the Ludiwg-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich. Her research interest includes human-environment dynamics and environmental economics, with a focus on geospatial and GIS technology. More recently, she has begun to work on bringing historical and modern data to life online to communicate with the public.

    Outside of research, she is an avid woodworker, hiker, new scuba diver, and just generally enjoys getting lost.

  • Personnel

    Patrick Hoehne is an assistant professor of Digital Humanities and History at the University of Southern Mississippi. He received his PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. There, he spent several years working on projects affiliated with the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities including O Say Can You See, To Enter Africa From America, and Gilded Age Plains City.

    Hoehne’s research focuses primarily on lynching, vigilantism, and crime in the United States between Independence and the end of the Civil War. Hoehne is particularly interested in the hidden human networks that bound together larger sequences of seemingly disparate acts of violence. He launched his own DH project, Riot Acts, to enable users to visualize and explore over 2,200 instances of American extralegal violence from between 1783 and 1865.

    Outside of work, Hoehne enjoys board games, fishing, and football.

  • Personnel

    Susannah Ural, Ph.D., is a Professor of History and the Frank & Virginia Williams Chair for Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Studies at Mississippi State University. She is also co-Director of The Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi (CWRGM) project.

    Ural received her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Kansas State University, and a B.A. in History & Political Science from the University of Vermont. She specializes in nineteenth-century American history, specifically socio-military experiences of U.S. Civil War soldiers and their families. Recently, her scholarship has blended military history and digital humanities (DH).

    Ural has served as the creator and director of numerous DH projects and is also the founding director of USM’s Center for Digital Humanities (CDH). Her DH projects include the Beauvoir Veteran Project (a DH study of Mississippi’s Confederate Home) from 2014 through 2019; the Mississippi Digital Courthouse Project (2015); and her most recent DH work, the CWRGM project.

    Outside of work, Ural enjoys working in the garden, walking in the woods, and relaxing with her husband and son, two crazy dogs, and their (the people’s, not the dogs’) chicken and quail.

  • Nicholas Garrett is a current history MA student at USM. He graduated summa cum laude with a BA in History and a minor in German from Arkansas Tech University.

    His MA thesis work focuses on the experiences of the 409th Infantry Regiment, which fought as part of the 103rd Infantry Division in World War II. Nick’s interest in the 409th began with his work on the 103rd Infantry Division Digital Humanities Project during summer 2023. His work on that project involved building pages for the new 103rd website as well as organizing and uploading digitized materials to the website.

    In his free time, he prefers to play video games. He doesn’t have any pets but does have two plants which are named Fern and Moss.

  • Program Coordinator

    Darcie Conrad is the Program Coordinator for the NSF REU and the Assistant to the Director for the School of Humanities.

    She graduated from USM with a Bachelor's degree in Social Work. After a brief stint working in the private sector she returned to USM to work for the South Mississippi Writing Project and has expanded to grants administration for other projects like the World Class Teaching Program and the Civil War Governor's of Mississippi project.

    She enjoys spending her free time with her husband and two children. They like to travel and make a point to visit at least one new place a year.

  • I am originally from Mississippi and have attended most of my undergraduate career at USM. I am a student in the Master of Computer Science program. I have received my bachelors, from USM, in biology. I was planning to pursue a degree in healthcare, but realized I would much rather be on the computer side of things with hopes of still working in healthcare.

    Outside of school, I enjoy cooking, spending time with my family, and working out.

  • Anamarie is a History Master's student from San Angelo, Texas. She earned her Bachelor’s in History from Angelo State University in 2022. As an undergraduate, she served as co-founder and co-editor of an undergraduate journal in history and geography: The Santa Angela Review. She also interpreted Texas and U.S. frontier history as a living historian/reenactor at Fort Concho National Historic Landmark. Her research interests include race and imperialism in the nineteenth century U.S. history.

    In her free time, Anamarie enjoys creative writing, reading, and embroidery.

  • Program Manager

    Maeve Losen is the manager for the Center for Digital Humanities at Southern Miss. She graduated from USM in 2022 with a Dual Master of Arts in History & Anthropology, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Public History. Her research interests include 20th century U.S. history, cultural anthropology, and public humanities.

    Losen first became engaged in DH as a grad student through a public history course, then later interned for Dr. Ural on a digital exhibit, and served as the 2020-21 DH graduate assistant.

    A Richmond, Virginia native, she loves to cook, read, watch TV, and get outside as much as possible. She and her boyfriend have two orange rescue cats named Kennedy and Red.