IVSA Board Members
Doug Harper
I’m Professor of Sociology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and have taught visual sociology at several universities in the US as well as the University of Amsterdam and Bologna. I’ve been involved with the IVSA since the organization formed in the early 1980s; am the founding editor of the journal, and have been to all but one IVSA meeting.
Luc Pauwels
Luc Pauwels is Professor of Visual Research Methods in the Faculty of Social Sciences (Department of Communication Studies) and Director of the Visual & Digital Cultures Research Center (ViDi) at the University of Antwerp.
Greg Scott
I am the director of the Social Science Research Center and a professor in the department of sociology at DePaul University where I teach courses on substance use and abuse, underground economies, street gangs, consciousness, urban culture, ethnographic documentary film production, photographic/visual sociology, and other topics.
Deborah Garofalo
Deborah Garofalo is a Cleveland native and currently a graduate student at Duquesne University. She has held several board positions at nonprofit organizations and served in the Peace Corps in Ukraine (2009-2011). Her career experience includes Associate Editor at a regional business journal, a business writer for a daily newspaper, and a senior manager at a Fortune 100 company in the Greater Cleveland area.
Susan Hansen
I am Convenor of the Visual Methods Group and Chair of the Forensic Psychology Research Group at Middlesex University, London. I have a background in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis and a PhD in Social Psychology. Although these are approaches usually confined to the analysis of transcribed video or audio data, in my current work I seek to apply some of the key methodological tenets of these approaches to the analysis of visual data. This allows attention to features not available through traditional forms of visual analyses – and in particular, attention to the everyday methods of sense-making used by members themselves, as opposed to the imposition of our own sociological analytic categories.
Yolanda Hernández-Albújar
Originally from Barcelona, Spain, Yolanda Hernandez-Albújar’s professional degrees and experiences are in Education and Latin American Studies. Her doctoral dissertation in sociology applied visual methodologies to the contexts of motherhood and migration.
Tracy Xavia Karner
I have been involved with IVSA since I attended the first Bologna meetings 1996. This was also my introduction to visually focused research. As a long time photo-enthusiast, I am both a maker and appreciator of photographs of all genres. The IVSA offered a way to bring both my love of photography together with my academic pursuits.
Jerome Krase
Although I am probably much better known as a Sociologist who studies Urban Neighborhoods and much more likely to define myself as an Activist or Public Scholar, almost all of my work has been “visual” in one way or another. I came to my first International Visual Sociology Association meeting in 1997 at the suggestion of a member of the American Sociological Association Urban Community Section who thought what I did was “Visual Sociology.”
Molly Merryman
I am the founding director of Kent State University’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and an associate professor of Sociology. My scholarly and professional work focuses on marginalized voices and inequalities, and because of this I have found that documentary video provides the most meaningful methodological approach for me to use.
Tara Milbrandt
I am an associate professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Augustana, a small liberal arts and sciences campus of the University of Alberta in Canada. I teach courses in social theory (classical and contemporary), as well as media & mass communication; community; film & culture. I taught visual sociology as a special topics course in 2014 and am in the process of introducing it into our curriculum as a regular offering.
Laura Porterfield
Laura Krystal Porterfield, Ph.D. is an urban educator, visualist, and youth culture scholar. Having grown up in El Paso, Texas, Laura is the daughter of two Mississippi transplants who instilled in her the value and promise of higher education.
Timothy Shortell
Timothy Shortell is a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He is a social psychologist studying urban geography using visual spatial semiotics.
Yannis Skarpelos
I studied Sociology and got a PhD in Visual Communication. I am Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Visual Sociology at the Department of Communication, Media and Culture – Panteion University. I have a strong interest in technology and I am directing a New Media Lab.
I also direct the MA in Cultural Administration, as well as the Drama Center.
Violetta Tsitsiliani
Originally from Athens, Greece, Violetta Tsitsiliani completed her studies in Translation (BA) at Ionian University and in Cultural Management (MA) at Panteion University. Her main academic interests are on creative industries and professional practices in Greece.
David Herman, Jr.
I am a lens-based artist, educator, and scholar whose work explores the relations between the perceptual and the social. My current research is grounded in a belief that the social is inherently political and that visual studies provides distinct opportunities to engage and understand the affective nature of being with difference.
Anja Weller
I studied media and communication studies at the University of Technology Chemnitz and finished my Ph.D. in visual communication. In my dissertation, I developed the creative interview as an alternative to language-based interviews to access implicit knowledge and imaginations constructed in the everyday life.
