Customer Spotlight: Kishonna Gray-Denson

1.    College/Unit: College of Arts & Sciences, Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies (WRD) and African American & Africana Studies (AAAS)

2. Describe what you and/or your team does at UK.

I love this question! I’m actually on several teams here at UK. My first team just won a Mellon Grant actually! This multi-million dollar grant will support us in exploring, analyzing and taking action against mis- and disinformation that threaten democracy, and undermine our ability to form complete and accurate narratives about our shared humanity. The UK team will focus specifically on how democracy is being undermined in gaming and how we can enable the community to push back on these dangerous and hurtful narratives.   

My second team is CIBS – the commonwealth institute of black studies. While there are a variety of activities that CIBS Is engaged in, I focus specifically on Black digital studies. Being in WRD, we forget the D stands for digital studies. So we are engaged in different social media projects, gaming projects, and others that elevate digital storytelling and we work to enable students are prepared for careers in social media.  

3. Talk about the ways you’ve collaborated with ITS and how it impacted your work. 

ITS has been an amazing collaborator since being here at UK. I was instantly engaged to think about how I could utilize the different tools on campus in the classroom and in my research. I’ve worked intimately for example with the Media Depot to support all of my projects. First, I use them to support podcast projects for my students. The media depot and other ITS staff were central to ensuring my summer camp, Camp Kiki, had the technological support to be successful. The amazing team at Cornerstone set my students up with gaming accounts, Ipads for mobile gaming and community engagement, and a host of other things.  

And we can’t forget that the amazing ITS team are always available to document my work and elevate it on their social media platforms. My current headshots were done by ITS staff! And they are amazing!