Past Students
Unnati Patel (July-November 2023)
Unnati Patel is a doctoral candidate in the Digital Transformation and Innovation program at the University of Ottawa, which is located on unceded territory of the Algonquin people who are the traditional guardians of this land. Her doctoral dissertation project addresses AI’s “black box problem” where the opacity regarding the rationale behind its decisions and actions results in a lack of suitable explanations to human users. Focusing on explainable AI (xAI), a set of processes and methods that would allow human users to understand the outputs of AI systems, she is applying ideas from social sciences research on how humans explain our own actions and thoughts to xAI initiatives.
A lifelong music enthusiast, Patel is interested in increasing the involvement of more diverse populations in the creation of multiple music genres. She believes that expanding the participation of marginalised groups in the music industry will positively impact culture and society in general. She contributed to this study by assisting with the research of discographic and biographic metadata of artists.
Kate Thornley (January 2022-May 2022)
Kate Thornley completed her B.Sc in Computer Science, with a Minor in Digital Humanities at the University of Ottawa in June 2022 . Through her minor in DH, Kate has found a way to merge her creative passions for art and music with code and data. She completed her DH Capstone project, “The Power of Fans: Charting the Canadian Music Industry Online,” under the supervision of Dr. Watson. Her project considered the effects of online music distribution services on Canadian musicians’ careers from a variety of genres.
As a freelance artist and developer Kate works with a variety of local musicians and is passionate about finding ways to help emerging artists grow. Working with the SongData team has been the perfect opportunity to continue her interests in STEAM and make a difference with real-world data.
Dalie Brisson (Summer 2018; Dec 2020-April 2022)
Dalie Brisson completed her Master of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa in May 2022. She was the first research assistant to join SongData in Summer 2018 as an undergraduate student, when she was pursuing her Bachelor of Arts with Specialization in Communications and Minor in Digital Humanities, which she completed in June 2020. She was first introduced DH when she enrolled in the Minor, learning about data analysis and curation in her introductory courses with Dr. Watson.
Music has always been an important part of Dalie’s life, so having the chance to participate in research connecting music to digital humanities, was an opportunity that she couldn’t pass up. This experience has opened up new academic paths for her and given her new insights into how big research projects are conducted, which has been invaluable for her in her MIS! In the Fall 2020 session, she took a special topics course in Data Feminism with Dr. Watson, and in collaboration with classmate Abigail Alty, undertook a project on representation on Canadian Active Rock radio. Learn more about “Spun out! Representation on Canadian Active Rock Radio.”
Leah Lapp (Sept 2019-December 2021)
Leah Lapp completed a Bachelor of Science at the University of Ottawa, where she Majored in Math and Minored in Music.
Music has always been a big part of Leah’s life; she grew up listening to country music and playing piano. After graduation, she intends to pursue a Bachelor of Education.
Jahnusha Shriraam (June 2019-December 2021)
Jahnusha Shriraam completed a Master of Music, in the Musician’s Wellness profile. She joined the team in June 2019, while completing an Honours Bachelor of Health Sciences, with a Minor in Music. Passionate about science and music, Jahnusha enjoys finding ways to connect both fields through research. She has been involved in music since she was 5 years old and has a soft spot for all things string. Her favourite instrument is a classical Indian instrument called the Veena. After her graduate work in Musician’s Wellness, Jahnusha hopes to branch off into either the medical sector or music therapy.
Florence Linteau (Sept 2018-Aug 2020)
If you hear country music blaring from sunrise to sunset, it’s very likely that you live below Florence Linteau’s apartment. Florence was a part of the SongData team from September 2018 to August 2020, while she was completing her B.A in Communication program. Passionate about writing and popular culture, her work has been published in the student-run newspaper at the University of Ottawa in the sports and arts section – her two greatest passions. Although she has no idea where her career path will take her, she hopes that one day she can contribute to the vibrancy of culture with her love of the written word. In February 2019, she wrote a blog for SongData on Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow.”
Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter (May 2020-Aug 2020)
Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter completed an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Communications (Media stream) with a Minor in Digital Humanities at the University of Ottawa. She was a member of the Songdata team in the summer she graduated. Outside of her studies, Zoë is a music promoter and radio DJ at CKCU FM under the moniker First Crush, and works to provide a platform for emerging artists through emphasizing the importance of community collaboration and safe-space practices. She is also the Co-Founder and Editor of Also Cool Mag, an online music and arts publication and collective founded in 2019.
Fatima Sajadi (Nov 2019-Apr 2020)
Fatima Sajadi holds a B.Sc degree in Information Technology and Chemistry from the National University of Iran and an M.Sc degree in computational chemistry from the Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is passionate about science and technology and finding ways to connect these two fields. Fatima brought her expertise in computer programming to the SongData team and developed code for parsing data scraped from various web sources.
Eugénie Tessier (Sept 2018-Dec 2019)
Eugénie Tessier is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Ottawa. She completed a Master of Arts in Musicology with a specialization in Women’s Studies (2019) and a Bachelor of Music (2017) in the School of Music at the University of Ottawa.
From 2017-2019, she held a fellowship from the Observatoire interdisciplinaire de création et de recherche en musique’s Master’s scholarship “Musique en France”, to support her research on on the representation of women through French song as well as in music criticism during the 1930s. At the heart of these questions, the singer Marianne Oswald serves as a vehicle to demonstrate the heterogeneity of this musical scene complexified through its political and socio-historical context.
Recipient of the University of Ottawa’s Ernest Gagnon Scholarship (2017-2019) and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2017-2018), Eugénie also works on the popular music industry in francophone Canada, specifically the Franco-Ontarian community. Her multidisciplinary research focuses on issues of identity as well as the place and role of doubly minorized artists (women, racialized or immigrants, etc.) in the emerging identity construction of these communities.
Candide Uyanze (Sept 2018-Apr 2019)
Candide Uyanze is a graduate student in OCAD’s Digital Futures program, researching free open source software, the digital divide, representation in the media, and inclusivity through technology. She was a member of the SongData team for the 2018-2019 academic year, as she completed her B.A. in Communication with a Minor in Digital Humanities. When she is not tinkering with different software applications or planning her next DIY craft project, Candide enjoys partaking in video editing, music festivals, event planning, world domination, and reading.
Candide’s current research interests include free open source software, the digital divide, decolonizing the digital, representation in the media, and building a more inclusive world through technology.
Sylvain Margot (Summer 2018)
Sylvain Margot is passionate about the connections that can be made between musical structure, topic and semantic. Specialist of the Haute-Marche medieval liturgies, and the evolution of polyphonic cadence in the medieval rondeau, he now works on adapting Digital Humanities methods to the analysis of galant style developments. Recipient of the Silver Medal of the Governor General, and of the Joseph-Armand Bombardier scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Music Theory at McGill University.