EMPLOYMENT
Assistant Professor, History Department, University of South Carolina, 2022–Present
Postdoctoral Scholar, History Department, Columbia University, 2018–2022
Project Lead, Mapping Historical New York, Columbia University, 2018–2022
Project Manager, imagineRio, Rice University, 2012–2015
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Rice University, History, 2018
“Lowering Mortality: A Spatial History of Segregation, Environments, and Mortality Transitions in New Orleans, 1880–1915,” Committee: Alida Metcalf, Caleb McDaniel, James Elliott, James Schafer. http://nola.spatialhistory.org
M.A., Rice University, History, 2014
M.A., California State University, Long Beach, Geography, 2011
“The 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee: An Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS) Approach,” Committee: J. Mills (chair), S. Wechsler, H. Ban, A. Curtis, P. Paskoff. *Awarded Best Thesis
B.A., Louisiana State University, cum laude, History, 2008
AWARDS AND HONORS
Columbia University Postdoctoral Research Symposium Top Poster Prize (2019)
Carville Earle Award, Historical Geography Specialty Group, AAG (2017)
Student Showcase Award, Digital Humanities Forum, University of Kansas (2016)
Mary Hayes Ewing Prize for the Best Article in Southern History, Rice University (2016)
Best Thesis Award, College of Liberal Arts, California State University, Long Beach (2012)
Graduate Dean’s List of University Scholars and Artists, CSU, Long Beach (2011)
Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society (2009)
Cum Laude, Louisiana State University (2008)
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society (2008)
GRANTS
Global South Research Grant, New Orleans Center for Gulf South, Tulane (2017)
Spatial Humanities Fieldwork Grant, Humanities Research Center, Rice (2017)
Dissertation Fellowship, Association of American Geographers (2017)
Exploratory Data Grant, Economic History Association (2016)
Research Grant through Ira and Patricia Gruber Fellowship, Rice University (2016)
Research Grant through HRC Carlson Fellowship, Rice University (2016)
History Department Research Grant, Rice University (2016)
Research Grant, Humanities Research Center, Rice University (2015)
PUBLICATIONS
Alida Metcalf, Sean Morey Smith, S. Wright Kennedy. “‘A mere gutter! The Carioca Aqueduct and Water Delivery in Mid-nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro,” Urban History (accepted July 2020). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S096392682000084X
S. Wright Kennedy. “Corruption and Development of Atlanta Streetcar Lines in the Nineteenth Century: A Historical GIS Perspective,” in Historical Geography, GIScience and Textual Analysis, edited by Charles Travis, Francis Ludlow, and Ferenc Gyuris. Springer Switzerland, (2020). DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-37569-0_7
Kevin Loughran, James R. Elliott, and S. Wright Kennedy. “Urban Ecology in the Time of Climate Change: Houston, Flooding, and the Case of Federal Buyouts,” Social Currents 6, no. 2, (2019): 121-140.
S. Wright Kennedy, Jessica C. Kuzmin, and Benjamin Jones. “New Methods in the History of Medicine: Streamlining Workflows to Enable Big-Data History Projects.” Media Review Series: Teaching & Researching the History of Medicine in the Era of (Big) Data, Medical History 61, no. 3 (2017): 477–480.
S. Wright Kennedy, Andrew J. Curtis, and Jacqueline W. Curtis. “Historic Disease Data as Epidemiological Resource: Searching for the Origin and Local Basic Reproduction Number of the 1878 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105, no. 5 (2015): 987–1002.
Andrew Curtis, J.W. Curtis, S.W. Kennedy, A. Kulkarni, and T. Auer. “A Methodology for Assessing Dynamic Fine Scale Built Environments and Crime: A Case Study of the Lower 9th Ward After Hurricane Katrina.” In Crime Modeling and Mapping Using Geospatial Technologies, edited by Michael Leitner, 203–225. Geotechnologies and the Environment 8. Springer Netherlands, 2013.
Jacqueline W. Mills, A. Curtis, B. Kennedy, S.W. Kennedy, and J.D. Edwards. “Geospatial Video for Field Data Collection.” Applied Geography 30, no. 4 (2010): 533–547.
PRESENTATIONS
Invited Public Lectures
LSU Rural Life Museum: “Everyday Epidemics: Mapping Diseases in New Orleans, 1880-1915,” March 9, 2019, Ione E. Burden Symposium: Death Among the Magnolias: Plague and Pestilence of Old Louisiana.
Emory University: “The Potential of Historical GIS and Spatial Analysis in the Humanities,” March 1, 2016, Digital Mapping and the Humanities Series. Published in Southern Spaces on March 2, 2017.
Rice University Digital Humanities Group: “Spatial History and Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS),” December 10, 2014.
Papers
S. Wright Kennedy, 2018. “From Depression to Hurricane: The History of Environment, Race, and Economics in New Orleans,” Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, New Orleans, LA (April 10–14, 2018). *Panel Chair
S. Wright Kennedy, 2018. “Mapping Disease, Race, and Class in New Orleans, 1877–1915: The Effects of Mortality Terrains on Socioeconomic Development,” American Historical Association, Washington, D.C. (January 4–7, 2018). *Panel Organizer
S. Wright Kennedy, 2017. “Mapping Disease, Race, and Class in New Orleans, 1877-1915: The Effects of Mortality Terrains on Socioeconomic Development,” Social Science History Association, Montreal, Quebec (November 2-5, 2017). *Panel Organizer
S. Wright Kennedy, 2017. “The New Orleans Mortality Project: Mapping the Connections between Health and Cycles of Poverty in the Mortality Transition, 1877-1915,” Annual Meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, Nashville, TN (May 4–6, 2017). *Panel Organizer and Chair
S. Wright Kennedy, 2017. “The New Orleans Mortality Project: Mapping the Impact of Health, Environment, and Socioeconomics, 1877-1915,” Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Boston, MA (April 5–9, 2017).
S. Wright Kennedy, 2016. “The New Orleans Mortality Project: Using Spatial Analysis and Historical GIS to Uncover Nineteenth-Century Disease Terrains and Assess the Impact on Community Development,” Digital Humanities Forum 2016: Places, Spaces, Sites: Mapping Critical Intersections in Digital Humanities, Lawrence, KS (October 1, 2016).
S. Wright Kennedy, 2016. “New Methods in the History of Medicine: Using Spatial Analysis and Historical GIS to Uncover Nineteenth-Century Disease Terrains and Assess the Impact on Community Development,” Annual Meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, Minneapolis, MN (April 28 – May 1, 2016).
S. Wright Kennedy, 2016. “The New Orleans Mortality Project: Building Nineteenth-century Mortality Terrains with Historical GIS and Digital Workflows.” Modeling and Mapping Historic Sites and Events, Humanities Research Center and Scientia Institute, Rice University. April 8–9, 2016
Jean Aroom and S. Wright Kennedy, 2015. “Reconciling 450 Years of Geospatial Data in Rio de Janeiro,” ESRI User Conference, San Diego, CA. (July 20–24, 2015).
S. Wright Kennedy, Amanda L. Chang, and Sean M. Smith, 2015. “Challenges of a GeoHumanities Mapping Project: Team Management and Rectifying Roads in a Diachronic Atlas of Rio de Janeiro,” Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Chicago, IL (April 21–25, 2015).
S. Wright Kennedy, 2014. “Using GIS and Spatial Analysis to Understand Dutch Slave Mortality and British Routes in the Middle Passage,” Territories, Memories, and Identities. Rice-Unicamp Seminar, Campinas, Brazil. (June 4–6, 2014).
Tompson, J. and S.W. Kennedy, 2012. “GIS for Small Businesses,” United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, New Orleans, LA (January 12–15, 2012).
S. Wright Kennedy, 2010. “Historical Mapping: Three-dimensional Mapping of the Antietam Creek Battlefield,” Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Washington, D.C. (April 14–18, 2010).
ACTIVITIES
Professional/Academic Activities
Project Lead, Historical New York City (HNYC) Mapping Project (2018–Present)
SSHA Historical Geography & GIS Network Representative (2018–Present)
Geographic Information Systems Professional (GISP) certification (2015–Present)
Mapping Instructor, History of Capitalism Workshop, Cornell University (2021)
Social Science Project Director (2017–2018)
RAPID: Assessment and Treatment of Flood-Contaminated Water Sources and Hot-spots of Microbial Contaminants in post-Harvey Houston (National Science Foundation Grant # 1759457)
Advanced Topics Academy for AP U.S. History Teachers (June 2017)
Special lecture on Spatial Humanities and Historical GIS
Visiting Researcher, Spatial History Project, Stanford University (May 2017)
Visiting Researcher, Urban Transition Historical GIS Project, Brown University (May 2017)
Visiting Scholar, GIS Health & Hazards Lab, Department of Geography, Kent State (April 2017)
imagineRio (www.imaginerio.org), Project Manager (2012–2015)
Cornell University History of Capitalism Workshop (2014)
Summer Program on Finance, Accounting, Regulation, Statistics, GIS
The Abolition Seminar (www.AbolitionSeminar.org) GIS Director (2013–2014)
NEH funded and hosted by the Library Company of Philadelphia
The American Yawp (www.AmericanYawp.org) Contributor (2013–2014)
Open-access History Textbook
University of Michigan Graduate Summer Session in Epidemiology (2013)
Summer Program in Epidemiology and Biostatistics
GeoStat (http://geostat-course.org)2013, Laval University
International Geostatistics Workshop
Hurricane Katrina Neighborhood Recovery GPS Video Surveys in New Orleans (2009–2012)
Field data collection
Vision Louisiana Residential College, Louisiana State University (2005–2006)
Planning sustainable community and economic development for Louisiana
Hurricane Response Service, Louisiana State University (2005)
Information center and trauma center volunteer during Katrina
Community Bound Service Group, Louisiana State University (2005)
Community service and outreach volunteer