Nicole Starosielski - Graduate Student Profile

Talking with Nicole Starosielski you get the sense that the third year Film and Media Studies (FMS) grad student has a head-start on us all. She explains that she chose UCSB because of the fantastic FMS faculty, but comments on the strength of faculty across the campus as a huge selling point. "The porous boundaries of this campus make it a place where theory-practice projects and cross-disciplinary endeavors can really take off." She likes the fact that she is a member of the first FMS Ph.D. class at UCSB. Nicole explains that "it gives my cohort the ability to imagine and shape the program in a unique way." Nicole's academic interests are varied but focus on emerging technologies (specifically visualization, animation, digital video and wireless technologies), the variety of practices which engage these forms, and their interconnections. "I am interested in how these forms help us to imagine resources, whether it is the environment, history, or time and how technologies both reiterate and transform the structures of power in place." As a Technology and Society Emphasis student, Nicole says that, "my disciplinary perspective has definitely been broadened by the range of individuals I’ve met and conversations I’ve had, both in the gateway seminar and at other CITS events."