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Roshanna P. SylvesterÌýis Associate Professor of Critical Media Practices and Digital Humanities. Her appointment is split between the Department of Critical Media Practices in CMCI and the Herbst Program for Engineering, EthicsÌýand Society in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. Originally trained in Russian history (PhD Yale University), Sylvester specializes in the histories of gender, technologyÌýand cultureÌýand the history of childhood in the early space age.
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Her first book,ÌýTales of Old Odessa: Crime and Civility in a City of Thieves, explored identity creation and expression in the pre-revolutionary city through analysis of crime reporting in the popular press. Sylvester’s current project,ÌýDreams in Orbit: Girls and Space-Age Cultures in Cold War America and the Soviet UnionÌýfocuses on letters from Soviet and American young people to the pioneering spacefarers Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn, and Valentina Tereshkova. External funding for the project has been provided by the Spencer Foundation, the American Philosophical SocietyÌýand the Kennan Institute.Ìý
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Sylvester has published research articles inÌýSlavic Review,ÌýRussian Review,ÌýJournal of the History of Sexuality,ÌýJournal of Urban History,ÌýJahrbücher für Geschichte OsteuropasÌýand several edited volumes on Soviet space history and culture. Her work has been featured inÌýThe Conversation,ÌýSmithsonian Magazine,ÌýAP News,ÌýtheÌýLos Angeles Review of Books, theÌýRussian History blogÌýand others. She has also presented at CU Boulder’s Fiske Planetarium and the Manfred Olsen Planetarium (at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).
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Before coming to CU, Sylvester was Associate Professor of History and member of the Distinguished Honors Faculty at DePaul University in Chicago. Recipient of the Thomas and Carol Dammrich Faculty Innovation Award, Sylvester served as Director ofÌýÌýStudioCHI, DePaul’s digital humanities center and was a member of theÌýChicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities and Computer ScienceÌýsteering committee.ÌýShe was also a visiting fellow at theÌýClinton Institute of American StudiesÌýat University College Dublin.