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Professor Gregor Kalas Receives NEH Grant to Conduct Research at UCLA

Thanks to an NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) fellowship, Professor Gregor Kalas is currently conducting research at the Experiential Technologies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

The grant, which enables a fellow to spend a period of time in a digital humanities center at an institution where the said fellow is not already affiliated, was given as part of the NEH Fellowships in Digital Humanities Centers Program, a new category for this year.

The project, "Statues of the Late Antique Roman Forum: Historical Memory and Digital Reconstruction," will digitally reconstruct ancient Rome. UCLA received the grant and Kalas received the fellowship associated with it. The total grant amount is $100,400, half of which went to Kalas. He will be in residence at UCLA throughout 2009-2010.

ETC promotes the use of new technologies for experiential research in diverse disciplines including architecture, the performing arts, classics, archaeology, foreign language studies, and education, among others. Projects at the center explore a wide range of phenomenological issues, including movement, sequencing, sonification and visualization.

Significant funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation focused the lab on reconstructions of ancient Rome and the development of methodology to facilitate the input of scientific committee members noted for their expertise on specific sites. ETC is continuing to push the investigation of experiential technologies into pedagogy, performance, and the development of open source tools for creating dynamic virtual environments.

For more information on ETC, visit http://www.etc.ucla.edu.

Professor Kalas received his doctorate from Bryn Mawr College and his Master's of Architecture at John Hopkins University. He is an architectural historian with a specialization in the architecture of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. His interests include the adaptation, preservation and reuse of ancient buildings during the post-classical period. His research also concerns urbanism and public art in late antique Rome with a specific focus on the early medieval Roman Forum.

In Kalas' place, Avigail Sachs will be a visiting lecturer in the college. Sachs also has expertise in the history and theory of architecture. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley and her Master's of Science in architecture studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.