Mapping LGBTQ+ Portland is a research project designed to document LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, etc.) places in the greater Portland area in Maine and their development over time. As Portland’s keystone queer nightclubs and bars face closure, we aim to explore how people still use place to engage with the Portland LGBTQ+ community. Our hope is to compile community members’ experiences with LGBTQ+ places in Portland, creating a virtual walking tour, accessible to the public, that demonstrates the richness and complexity of LGBTQ+ Portland.
Zorina Khan: Professor of Economics
Features research on the law and economics of antitrust, intellectual property, entrepreneurship and innovation. The blog “Life on the Margin” relates these empirical findings to current events to provide a factual, nonpartisan foundation for economic debates.
Emerging Technologies Lab – Virtual Reality Research
The Emerging Technologies Lab, established in 2019, is Bowdoin College’s first virtual reality (VR) research laboratory. The ETL aims to augment research and learning at Bowdoin College in an expansive range of academic disciplines by using novel immersive technologies.
The applications of virtual reality for education and research are limitless. The ETL can program an experiment to a researcher’s exact specifications, complete with surroundings, sounds, and dynamic events. This provides both a great degree of experimental control and an extremely immersive experience for subjects, qualities which are often at odds in conventional experiments.
The ETL can also deliver powerful learning aids in coordination with professors, such as immersive 360-degree footage of a location of interest or a virtual object that can be held and rotated as if it were real. These principles can be applied in diverse ways to any academic field at Bowdoin in order to enhance learning and research experiences.
“The mission of the ETL is to provide the equipment, expertise, and vision needed to deliver these ambitious enhancements to coursework and research at Bowdoin.”
The ETL is also committed to breaking down accessibility barriers at Bowdoin by making off-campus experiences, such as labs in the field, deliverable via virtual reality.
Site: https://research.bowdoin.edu/emerging-technologies-lab/
Momentos Naturales Colombia
Momentos Naturales Colombia is a series of short videos in Spanish about animals and plants that just about anyone in Latin America can easily find near their home, whether they live in the countryside or in the city. All the photographers, writers and producers of the videos are students of the course “Production of nature videos: natural history of Colombia”, which took place at the Universidad del Valle, Cali in 2018 under the instruction of recently retired Bowdoin Professors Nat and Genie Wheelwright and inspired by Nat’s Nature Moments series.
Site: https://research.bowdoin.edu/momentos-naturales-colombia
Nature Moments
“Nature Moments” is a weekly series of short videos designed to showcase the natural history of common plants and animals. If you live in eastern North America, you will be able to find almost all these species. The videos are being filmed as the seasons change in Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Natural Sciences, Biology Nathaniel T. Wheelwright’s backyard in Brunswick, Maine.