Dr. Natalie Underberg-Goode is Professor and Assistant Director, Games and Interactive Media, in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media. She is also affiliate faculty in the Latin American Studies program. Her research examines the use of digital media to preserve and disseminate folklore and cultural heritage, with a focus on digital storytelling and participatory new media design and practice. She is author of the books Multiplicity and Cultural Representation in Transmedia Storytelling (Routledge, 2023) and Digital Ethnography: Anthropology, Narrative, and New Media (Elayne Zorn, co-author, University of Texas Press, 2013), editor of a special issue of the international journal Visual Ethnography on Exploring Digital Ethnography through Embodied Perspective, Role-Playing and Community Participation and Design, and author of 34 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings. She has directed or co-directed multiple digital heritage projects over the years, including Portal to Peru (https://projects.cah.ucf.edu/portaltoperu), which presents and interprets the weaving traditions and experiences of weavers in Cuzco, Peru, a project completed in collaboration with the non-profit Center for Traditional Textiles of Cuzco. She has been PI or co-PI on research and teaching grants and fellowships totaling nearly $205,000, in addition to receiving a competitive two-semester sabbatical at ¾ pay and being Key Personnel on a $185,000 Department of Education grant. These grants and fellowships include two Florida Humanities Council, two Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs grants, The Strong Research Fellowship, and flow-through funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her research has been presented at more than two dozen national and international conferences, including the Bilan du Film Ethnographique seminar in Paris, France and the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). In addition to research, Dr. Underberg-Goode has developed core courses for the Digital Media and Latin American Studies programs and electives for the Film and Texts and Technology programs at UCF. She has taught or teaches courses in a variety of areas including digital and interactive storytelling, research methods, video game history, and Latin American popular culture, as well as Visual Anthropology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru-Lima. She has served her profession through such activities as co-organizing four international and three regional conferences, serving on and previously chairing the Department of State Bureau of Historic Preservation Florida Folklife Council, being electronic media featured and reviewed projects editor for Visual Anthropology Review, electronic media reviews editor for the Journal of American Folklore, and digital story and electronic literature curator for Aquifer: The Florida Review Online. 

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