Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group

  Sometimes, all it takes is a trip to Norway to confirm that everything is connected. From June 2 to June 11, I traveled with my faculty advisors from Storymodelers to Kristiansand, Norway, to participate in a workshop on the use of modeling as a method for teaching and learning. This workshop was part of an ongoing project at the University of Agder  titled "Modeling for Histories", which is currently in the early stages of testing and has not yet been publicly disseminated. The project is led by Dr. Apostolos Spanos (University of Agder) in collaboration with Dr. Alexandra Lazareva (University of Agder), Dr. Jose J. Padilla ( Old Dominion University ) and Dr. Erika Frydenlund (Old Dominion University). The goal is to explore how model thinking can support history education by helping students move beyond traditional linear narratives and develop a deeper understanding of complex relationships, actors, and processes that shape historical events. This blog is a summary ...

  As a scholar at the Department of War Cyber Service Academy (DoW CSA), I was selected to participate in the inaugural 2026 VICEROY Vector cohort located at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (NIWC PAC), a summer internship with NIWC PAC at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, California. My summer internship was organized by Griffiss Institute , the premier STEM talent and technology accelerator for the United States Department of War . It is a nonprofit organization that aims to develop the next generation of STEM talent and defense technologies that will strengthen U.S. national security and create economic opportunity for our nation. Griffiss Institute offers a ton of programs, internships, camps, and other opportunities/events to accelerate talents from a wide range of education stages (2nd grade school students and all the way to postdoc scholars).  Prior to participating in the internship, multiple internship coordinators from Griffiss Institute and NIWC PA...

In collaboration with Dr. Alexander Nwala at William & Mary and Dr. Sawood Alam at the Internet Archive , we ( Himarsha R. Jayanetti , Dr. Michael L. Nelson , and Dr. Michele C. Weigle ) at the Web Science and Digital Libraries (WS-DL) Research Group at Old Dominion University received an award of $750,000 in federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) beginning in August 2026. The award supports the project, “CiteCast: Linking US local & national television news to cited web resources” .  The project focuses on identifying and preserving web resources referenced in archived U.S. local and national television news. Television news frequently points viewers to websites, social media posts, and other online resources, but those resources can change or disappear over time. The goal of this is to help connect these references in television archives with the corresponding web resources and preserve them for future research. Figure 1: Example TV ...

  The Computer Science Graduate Society (CSGS) was founded in 2019 by Eleni Adam and Yasha Ravindra as the primary student body representing both master’s and PhD students in Computer Science at Old Dominion University . CSGS helps students navigate their graduate programs while serving as a bridge between the student body and the department . Its mission is to enrich the academic, professional, and social experiences of master’s and doctoral students while building a supportive community where members can grow personally and professionally throughout their graduate journey. I served as CSGS President during the 2025/26 academic year. Taking on that role alongside my responsibilities as a graduate student gave me a different perspective on what it means to lead a student organization while balancing research, coursework, responsibilities as a teaching assistant, and a dissertation. I wanted to reflect on that experience here, not simply as a record of what we did, but as an ho...