Virginia Kuhn, Ph.D.

Research Assistant Professor
Associate Director, IML

Virginia Kuhn joined the IML in 2005 after successfully defending one of the first all-digital dissertations in the country, challenging archiving and copyright conventions. Her dissertation was created in TK3, an electronic book platform that is the precursor to the USC-based, open source program, Sophie.

Kuhn teaches in the Honors in Multimedia Scholarship program at the IML and is also working on the creation of a persistent, media-rich digital portfolio, along with the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The project was recently awarded a large (3 terabyte) allowance of storage space on SDSC’s TeraGrid—this will make the portfolio accessible to numerous grid users across the country. In its beta stage, the digital portfolio provides numerous functions from assessment to pedagogical aid, from a showcase for student work to an eventual space for faculty work in digital media.

Kuhn’s research interests include digital rhetoric, visual literacy and critical multiculturalism. Her work can be found in online journals such as Kairos, ebr (electronic book review) and Academic Commons, as well as in print. Before joining USC, Kuhn taught in departments of Film, English, and Cultural Studies and she spent three years as a writing program administrator at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.