Meet our AL Authors Project Team
Director
Beverley Park Rilett is the inaugural director of Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries, a digital humanities initiative she began developing with her students in 2021 as Associate Research Professor and Digital Humanities Coordinator at Auburn University Libraries. After nearly a decade at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Dr. Rilett found her professional and personal home in the heart of Alabama where she leads interdisciplinary teams to create open-access resources that blend literary scholarship, computer science, and library sciences.
"Dr. Bev," as her students call her, also directs three internationally recognized George Eliot-focused projects: George Eliot Archive, George Eliot Review Online, and George Eliot Scholars. Her work features innovations such as AI-based text analysis, TEI encoding, geospatial and chronological data visualizations, and applications like alt-text and text-to-speech that improve access to digital materials and advance public humanities.
Current Research Assistants (A-Z)
Elizabeth "Lizzie" Craig, 2024-present, is a senior in English with a certificate in Professional and Public Writing at Auburn University. Lizzie's first project was identifying and compiling public domain digital books for 19th-century Alabama authors. In Fall, 2025, Lizzie was promoted to Assistant Editor of the project, managing quality and development in collaboration with Dr. Rilett.
Yue Cui, 2022-present, completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Software Engineering at Auburn University and now works as a faculty member at Auburn University at Montgomery. She developed a TEI encoding toolkit for encoding George Eliot’s fiction, poetry and letters that eventually will be used to add data visualization and text analysis features for the Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries site. She also provides data cleaning, website maintenance, and technical assistance to senior design computer science students.
Katherine Ball, 2025-present, is an editorial assistant with the George Eliot Archive and Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries projects. She is completing a remote digital humanities internship in collaboration with Auburn University and the University of Florida. She double majors in Linguistics and English, and will graduate from UF in May, 2026.
Kevien Shelton, 2022-present, is a junior at Auburn University, majoring in Computer Science. He researches, corrects, and adds data to the Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries project. With Corey McDaniels, Kevien programmed the prototype literary map of Alabama Authors. Currently, they are extracting geographic data for an additional 1700 authors.
Libo "Donald" Sun, 2022-present, is a PhD student in Computer Science at Auburn University. He assists in all aspects of the website maintenance and provides technical guidance to senior design computer science teams.
Former Research Assitants (A-Z)
Mavis A. Adam-Moses, 2022-23, researched authors and refined data in the earliest days of the Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries project. She also processed files and metadata for the George Eliot Archive.
Olivia Ainooson, 2022-23, helped to build the prototype Alabama Authors of the 19th & 20th Centuries by searching and editing author portraits and book covers. She also contributed to metadata standardization.
Sylvan Baker, 2022-23, worked as Assistant Editor of Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries, overseeing the editorial research assistants on the team and organizing data for more than 1700 authors to be added to the site in Phases 2 and 3.
Brad Hughes, 2021-23, was Head Developer of Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries in addition to the three George Eliot digital projects.
Bennett Jetmundsen, 2023, researched, amended, and corrected data for Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Caitlin Jones, 2023, served as an editorial assistant for Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries. She verified and refined book publication data. She also mentored digital humanities students in their honors course projects.
Amee Kivette, 2024, worked on the Senior Design developing the interactive data visualizations representing AL authors and books.
Shataydrian Marshall, 2024, used data science applications to extract geographical information from our authors database in order to expand our literary map of Alabama.
Corey McDaniels, 2023-25, worked with Kevien Shelton to develop the Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries literary map, and helped extract geographic data from author bios.
Zion McThomas, 2022-23, verified the location information for approximately 150 Alabama authors originally published on This Goodly Land’s literary map. She also collected new geographic data, including birthplace, childhood home, alma mater, and gravesite location, to be used in phase 2 of our literary map.
Harrison Patten, 2021-22, created the first dataset of Alabamian authors for Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries, compiling lists, checking details, and helping to determine the layout of the author gallery.
Kevien Shelton, 2022-25, researched, corrected, and added data to the project. With Corey McDaniels, Kevien programmed the prototype literary map of Alabama Authors and helped extract geographic data from author bios.
Reed Swope, 2023, collected, cropped, and enhanced author portraits; created book cover templates for books without jackets.
Logan Phelps, 2023-24, collected book cover images and served as Assistant Editor of Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries in Spring 2024.
Cady Pridgeon, 2024, worked on the Senior Design developing the interactive data visualizations representing AL authors and books.
Alexis Stoffers, 2023-25, served as the Assistant Editor, ensuring information quality and managing the development of the project in collaboration with Dr. Rilett.
Xianming Tang, 2022-23, used his expertise in Data Science and Software Engineering to curate, extract, and clean files and metadata for both the served as a liaison between Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries and the George Eliot Archive projects.
Keanna Tennyson, 2024, worked on the Senior Design developing the interactive data visualizations representing AL authors and books.
Abraham "Abe" Velasco, 2023, served as a liaison between Alabama Authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries and George Eliot Archive. He used Excel, Python, and json coding languages to clean, manipulate, and manage project data for both projects.
Laura Wilson, 2024, worked on the Senior Design developing the interactive data visualizations representing AL authors and books.
Student Interns (A-Z)
Fall 2025
EDITORS: Katherine Ball, Monique Heelam
Summer 2025
EDITORS: Abby Mencner, Angelina Ramos, Audrey DeLuca, Barbara Kaklias, Em Petlev, Hailee Spoor, Isa Ward, Isabella Forero, Lena Larsen-Bordeau, Monique Heelam
Spring 2025
EDITORS: Isabella Forero, Barbara Kaklias, Lena Larsen-Bourdeau, Angelina Ramos, Alyss Santiago,
Fall 2023 - Fall 2024
EDITORS: Brooke Arnold, Josh Baskaran, Carter Deriso, Sophia Halstead, Wesley Lowman, Molly Myrick, Logan Phelps, Lucy Mills Sammataro, Cara Shade, Ty Taylor
DEVELOPERS: Nathan Bradshaw, Ben Buckley, Spencer Dunn, Yubaraj Karki, Eddie Kim, Amee Kivette, Shataydrian Marshall, Thomas Lander, Clayton Onwere, Cady Pridgeon, Garrett Scott, Keanna “Kat” Tennyson, Will Tobens, Laura Wilson