Digital Writing Environments, Location, and Localization (DWELL) Lab
The DWELL Lab investigates how location-based media are changing the ways that writers and readers interact with place. DWELL is a collaborative initiative between the Departments of Professional & Public Writing and Natural Resources Science that focuses on innovative approaches to science communication. We provide funded experiential learning opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students through student grants and awards as well as through our funded community-engaged digital projects. Projects in the lab focus on the use of mobile, locative, and wearable technologies for community-engaged science communication, social justice, and environmental advocacy.
DWELL works at the nexus of science and technical/professional writing, rhetorical field methods, and digital production to create high-impact experiential learning initiatives in support of public interests and local communities. Through a foundation in the study of rhetoric, we combine spatial theories, user-localization, and place-based methods with emerging technologies to build platforms that foster equitable knowledge-production within local communities.
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News
Check out For Shore podcast! - For Shore is a podcast about coasts and oceans, hosted by Rhode Island Sea Grant. On For Shore, you’ll hear from people with real stakes in ocean health and renewable energy- scientists, fishermen, community leaders, resource managers, and more. Abbey Greene, a co-host of For Shore and an Ocean Planning Specialist at Sea Grant, saw […]
SURF 26′: Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship - In partnership with the RI NSF EPSCoR’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program at the University of Rhode Island, DWELL Lab is seeking students interested in collaborating on the North Woods Field Guide project in Summer 2026 (see the project description below for details). Selected undergraduates will be paid a stipend of up to $6,400 […]