Adam from Salt Lake City - Ph.D.

My name is Adam Davis.  I'm originally from Salt Lake City, Utah and I'm a PhD student.

For my area of study, I decided to mix new media and cinema.  My background is in cinema but I found opportunities here to study new media and certainly it's one of the frontiers where research is going and so I decided to try to put the two together, looking both at cinematic elements in virtual worlds--I study Second Life in particular--and also avatars in film.

When I was deciding what school to attend I received several phone calls and emails from different faculty.  I had the opportunity to talk with some of them and even come out here and meet a few of them, and the department is kind with their support of students financially as well as academically, and all of these contributed to my decision come here to SIUC.

Some of the courses that I enjoyed were those that focused on media arts and media arts theory.  I really liked these because they provided a really strong background and a broad background in a lot of different media, and I find intersections between those media to be particularly fascinating.

I did have the chance to participate in the Big Muddy Film Festival.  My role was a screener.  So along with other students and faculty we met on a Saturday and reviewed films that were submitted to the festival and this was not only enlightening to see what kind of material was being submitted but we also had some good discussions as we viewed the films and compared our different takes.

I was fortunate to get the Morris Fellowship, which provides 3 years of full funding, and then it goes into an assistantship.  So this allowed me extra time for class work, and it's been a really good experience and I'm grateful for the university.

I have presented my material at a number of conferences.  I've also participated in the poster session that's held here on campus and worked on submitting material for publication which is still in progress.

My plans are to teach at a university or college level and also to continue my own creative writing and other media related pursuits.  I do some photography and a couple of other things.  I've always received a lot of support from the department.

In fact, it's been very impressive how open and welcome they've been to my concerns and how they've helped me to craft my program, and I would recommend for anybody considering a graduate program in any of the fields that MCMA covers to consider SIU.