Courtney Rivard

Courtney Rivard is the Director of the Digital Literacy and Communications (DLC) Lab and an Assistant Professor in the Department of English & Comparative Literature with a secondary appointment in the School of Data Science & Society at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her work bridges interdisciplinary collaborative approaches with humanistic inquiry and computational methods, focusing on digital literacy, public humanities, digital humanities, and critical game studies.

Her research explores how the information infrastructure of archives constructs arguments around race, gender, class, and national belonging. She advocates for community-centered oral history practices to foster inclusive archival methodologies and examines how computational analysis can address silences in historical records. Additionally, she investigates the intersection of gaming theory and pedagogy to develop critical frameworks for analyzing identity and algorithmic rhetoric in narrative structures.

Courtney has secured significant funding, including a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant for her Critical Gaming Initiative and a Lenovo Instructional Innovation Grant to establish the Greenlaw Gameroom, UNC's first game-based classroom. These initiatives support her work in creating a Critical Game Studies minor.

• NEH Grant
• Lenovo Instructional Innovation Grant

As the leader of the DLC Lab, she promotes innovation in the humanities, emphasizing digital communication and inclusive scholarship. Her efforts extend to designing new forms of academic work that leverage digital tools for broader public engagement.