The core technical team for the Commons is part of MESH Research at MSU. Additionally we are supported by a number of external collaborators and contractors.
Technical Team
Michael Thicke
Michael Thicke is technical lead on the Humanities Commons project. He is a philosopher of science, social epistemologist, and web developer, having received an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology from the University of Toronto. Prior to joining the Commons team, Mike was the developer of WP Museum, a WordPress plugin for managing an online museum in WordPress, which is used by the University of Toronto Scientific Instruments Collection.
Brian Boggan
Brian Boggan is the Commons’ identity management engineer. He has an undergraduate degree in Networking and Cybersecurity specializing in Network Technology. He brings years of experience in enterprise access, network, and application support. Before joining the Commons team, he managed high-level public facing applications for the State of Michigan – Department of Health and Human Services.
Dimitris Tzouris
Dimitris Tzouris is the Commons’ infrastructure developer. He comes to the Commons team from the American College of Thessaloniki, where he developed extensive experience as an instructional technologist. Tzouris has an undergraduate degree in Computer Management Information Systems and has delivered talks and workshops on educational technology at numerous international events. He has served as a member of the coordinating committee of AMICAL, the American International Consortium of Academic Libraries, advising on social media and learning technologies. Tzouris also founded Global Game Jam Thessaloniki and has served as a member of the TEDxThessaloniki team.
Ian Scott
Ian Scott is Python developer leading work on the Knowledge Commons Repository. Ian comes from an academic background in Religious Studies and Digital Humanities, and he has held faculty positions at Tyndale University and the University of Western Ontario. He has a longstanding passion for open research and for the potential of web technologies to make scholarship more just and accessible. He was co-director of the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha and is a member of the technical committee for the Distributed Text Services API standard. Prior to joining the Commons team, he developed an eLearning application for students of ancient Greek.