First graduate student from UNT to be part of the HASTAC Scholars program, Lora Tompkins

UNT graduate student Lora Tompkins has been accepted to the Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory (HASTAC) Scholars Program. Lora is the first graduate student from UNT to be part of this international program.

Lora Tompkins is the Graduate Assistant for Digital Humanities with the Digital Humanities and Collaborative Programs Unit in the Public Services Division of the UNT Libraries. She is pursuing Master’s degrees in Library & Information Science, and History at UNT. As a person with cerebral palsy, Lora advocates for accessibility and accommodations for those with disabilities. She works to help educate people about the life of a disabled person, and can be seen around campus with Loki, her standard (large) Black Poodle service dog.

During her fellowship, Lora will develop a content aggregation site of canine training and behavior videos, with emphasis on the service dog community and their needs. The hope is that the site will serve as a common platform for trainers and service dog teams, to discuss training and behaviors when distance prevents physical interaction. Lora’s fellowship will be supervised by Dr. Spencer Keralis, Research Associate Professor in the UNT Libraries.

 

The HASTAC Scholars fellowship program is an innovative student-driven community of graduate and undergraduate students. More than 800 HASTAC Scholars in dozens of disciplines have been sponsored by 145 colleges and universities--ranging from small liberal arts colleges to large Research 1 institutions.

 

Attached is a photo of Lora’s service dog, Loki, and Lora. Some of the experiences they had in training five years ago, and the experiences of fellow Service Dog teams that they know and have worked with is what inspired the HASTAC project.