Jeff Emanuel (harvard.academia.edu/JeffEmanuel, Twitter: @jeffemanuel) is Associate Director of Academic Technology at Harvard University, leading a team of highly experienced instructional technology professionals that researches, develops, implements, and supports digital tools and approaches to teaching, learning, and research (see grants & projects). The Academic Technology team serves the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University's largest school, and supports over 1,100 faculty, 1,000 researchers, and 10,000 students across Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
In 2015, Jeff and a History Department faculty member, Gabriel Pizzorno, co–founded the Harvard University Digital Scholarship Support Group (DSSG), a network that operates in lieu of a Center for Digital Scholarship or Digital Humanities to provide training, research support, and infrastructure development for digital scholarship, as well as to provide faculty, students, and staff interested in incorporating digital methods into their teaching and research with a single point of entry to the many resources available at Harvard.
Jeff is also a member of the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching's University–wide Teaching and Learning Consortium, a network of pedagogy experts that "incubates and refines teaching and learning ideas and initiatives that cross school and disciplinary boundaries," and was co-Chair of the Digital Futures Consortium at Harvard (DFC), a "network of technologists, faculty, researchers, and librarians engaged in the ongoing transformation of scholarship through innovative technology through sharing expertise across the global academic community, facilitating new forms and methods of research, and fostering collaborative projects that bring about field changing developments in scholarship" (see University & department service). An active initiative since 2012, the DFC was sunset in 2019 as a result of the activities and engagement that were its raisons d'être having been successfully incorporated into organizations and activities across the University (including the Digital Scholarship Support Group).
Additionally, Jeff holds an appointment as CHS Fellow in Aegean Archaeology and Prehistory at Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies, researching naval warfare and the development of maritime technology with a focus on the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age transition (see books, publications, and conference & workshop papers). He has also served as a member of the Society for American Archaeology's (SAA) Media Relations Committee and the SAA's Gene Stuart Award committee.
Previously, Jeff was a founding member of HarvardX, a presidential initiative at Harvard (led by the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning) that focuses on digital teaching, learning, and research, both on campus and online. He served as Inaugural HarvardX Fellow, Inaugural Senior Fellow, and Senior Project Lead, leading in the design and development of online learning experiences, curriculum, and business and project managenent processes. He also served as project director for two key software development initiatives, the Open edX/LTI Annotation Tool development project and, in collaboration with Harvard's Library Technology Services and Arts & Humanities Research Computing, the Shared Canvas/Mirador image viewer project (see grants & projects). Administratively, Jeff served as co-chair of the HarvardX Instructor Experience and Student Experience Committees, as curriculum developer and lead instructor on Blended Learning and Flipped Classroom Techniques for the HarvardX-FAS Faculty Academy, and as a founding member of the FAS Blended Learning Support Team (see University & department service). He received the CIO Council "Golden Bit Award" in 2013 for "significant contributions to Harvard University's Strategic IT Initiative in Online Learning."
A member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Jeff conducted his graduate study at Harvard, where he concentrated in Social and Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology and earned the Director's Prize for Outstanding Thesis in the Social Sciences. Prior to this, Jeff studied Classics (with a Classical Archaeology concentration) at the University of Georgia, where he also served as a security leadership fellow with the Center for International Trade and Security, served as a Franklin College of Arts & Sciences Ambassador, and competed in water polo and triathlon. While at Georgia, Jeff was recognized for excellence in scholarship and citizenship, receiving awards for local and international community service from the University and from the Athens–Clarke County Rotary Club, including the Pillar of the Community Award (awarded for "assisting others above and beyond the call of duty"), the Bulldog Vision Award (for "demonstrating outstanding leadership and vision for the betterment of the community"), and the Circle of Excellence Award for international community service. His volunteer service has included establishing a program to teach English to orphaned children in rural South Korea, and being trained to serve as an officer of the Juvenile Court representing underprivileged children in abuse, neglect, and custody cases in Georgia. He also holds an associate's degree in Information Systems Technology from the community College of the Air Force.
Jeff previously served as a Special Warfare operator in the US Air Force. His assignments included a year in Korea (2002) and deployment to Iraq (2003) as a member of a joint special operations task force. He returned to Iraq in 2007 as a civilian journalist, reporting from the front lines for several newspapers, magazines, and websites, including an exclusive report from Samarra that was the cover story of the November 2007 issue of The American Spectator magazine.
Additionally, Jeff is founder and managing partner of a web development and digital strategy firm, Lighthouse Strategies & Consulting. He has worked as a consultant, senior project manager, and online content and communication strategist, developing dynamic websites and digital communication strategies for businesses, nonprofits, and academic organizations from the Beltway to the Rocky Mountains.
