USF Institute for Digital Exploration

Everybody has a happy place... For the IDEx team is the Tampa Museum of Art! Another successful digital fieldwork to enrich with new 3D assets the digital presence of this amazing museum!

What an honor to attend and speak today at the first Black Cemetery Conference. We are delighted to speak about our work in digitizing at-risk memory spaces like historic Black cemeteries which have been lost to time and neglect. So many amazing presenters/speakers/artists/scholars. Thank you to Dr. Antoinette Jackson and the Black Cemetery Network for including us in this important work, and for State Representative Fentrice Driskell for her vital legislative work in preserving Florida cemetery heritage.

You can read more about BCN here:
https://blackcemeterynetwork.org/

Excited to share our work on digital preservation of Florida black cemetery at the 2026 Black Cemetery Network conference! We'll be in the panel "Tools, resources, and expertise in historic cemetery preservation and remembering": Panel participants: FPAN (R. Kangas), Stantec (R. O’Sullivan), USF IDEx (Dr. D. Tanasi), USF Libraries Special Collections (A. Boczar); Exec Director, River Road African American Museum + funeral home director, Hambrick Family Mortuary (D. Hambrick); forensic science and community history (Dr. P. Stubblefield); Moderator - Dr. A. Jackson.

Congratulations to IDEx Senior Members Dr. Madeleine Kraft and Angela Costello, who will both be presenting at the Annual Meeting of the North American Patristic Society (NAPS) in Chicago from May 21–23".
Madeleine will present on “Religious Co-Production in the Catacombs of Santa Lucia: The Formation of Funerary Religion and the Materiality of Syncretism in Sicily, 3rd-6th Centuries CE”, and Angela on “The Daughters of Eve: Assessing the Writings of the Church Fathers to Better Understand Women’s Dress in Late Antiquity”.
We couldn't have asked for a better representative for our team!"

Some days our fieldworks are in truly wonderful places! Today our team was at the USF Contemporary Art Museum to digitize "Things Don't Seem the Same" 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition" and we loved every minute of it!

Join us this Friday for the next joint event with the University of South Florida Libraries. Only a few open seats left!

Join us this Friday, April 24th, from 9am - 1pm for a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) workshop in collaboration with the USF Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx)!

This workshop is open to USF students, staff, and faculty. Email Sara Hassam to RSVP: [email protected]

Join IDEx Director, Dr Davide Tanasi, tomorrow at the The Italian Club of Tampa for his lecture on Roman Villas in ancient Sicily! For tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sicily-history-culture-dinner-lecture-tickets-1984077514255?aff=oddtdtcreator

Oustanding IDEx representation yesterday for Italian Heritage Celebration Even at the Sons of Italy Lodge where we highligted our many projects in Sicily! Huge crowd, great interest and special guest the Dean of the USF College of Arts and Sciences Dr. Elizabeth Spiller!

Another amazing digital preservation project in the books! In tandem with the University of South Florida Libraries, an IDEx team 3D digitized one century old furniture and objects of decor from the historical Tampa Theatre!

Preserving a century: USF partnership brings Tampa Theatre history to centennial exhibition University of South Florida

Great IDEx representation today for the The Italian Club of Tampa open house where showcase our remote sensing, archaeology and digital preservation projects in Sicily. Go Bulls! USF College of Arts and Sciences

Anthropology student Emanuel Mazariego using advanced 3D scanning as part of the Guatemalan Mask Project, which preserves the rich performative traditions of Central American and Latino cultures. Protecting heritage, expanding access, and keeping these stories alive for future generations!