Yiwen Li (2021)

Yiwen Li was born and raised in Jiangsu, China. She graduated from Peking University with double majors in History and Diplomacy in 2020. Since her sophomore year, she’s found her interest in the social history of modern and contemporary China. She believes that the most fascinating thing about history is that every little change in the lives of ordinary people combined to create such a great change in the whole society. As a research method, oral history is particularly critical when studying social history, especially the history of ordinary people. 

In 2017, Yiwen took part in a group organized by Peking University and The Kuok Group to do research on Modes of Eliminating Poverty in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia.  There, she learned some oral interview techniques from the group members majored in Sociology. With their help, she interviewed the villagers from 3 villages in Ulanqab about recent local changes and wrote a research report. This was her first time to learn how to use oral materials. One year later, she went to Yunnan Province with teachers and students from the Department of History to investigate on the role of tourism in eliminating poverty in Yunnan minority inhabited areas. In this program, she proposed that they could interview the traditional craftsmen and she was in charge of the interview. In addition, in 2020-2021, as a member of the Oral History Program - "People from Peking University" , she carried on oral history interview with Chuanxi Zhang, a retired professor from the Department of History of PKU. Professor Zhang shared a lot about his family history and his early experiences of studying and participating in student movements. All these things are little known in the past but can help us glimpse a corner of modern Chinese society. 

Yiwen is thrilled to join the 2021 OHMA cohort to learn more systematically on oral history method and theory and get more prepared for her future research on the social history of modern and contemporary China.

Martina Lancia (2021)

Born and raised in Rome, Martina has a background in contemporary history, business and international cooperation, with degrees from Sapienza University of Rome and LUISS. Having finished the program at OHMA, Martina is set to begin a PhD in Italian Studies at Brown University, with a focus on Pierpaolo Pasolini, the Roman peripheries, and oral histories of Rome.

Martina’s passion for oral history stems from the work of Ascanio Celestini, a playwright and performer who uses oral history to create live shows and films steeped in the contemporary history of both Rome and Italy. After spending time working in the Circolo Gianni Bosio archive on the interviews about the Massacre of Fosse Ardeatine, her thesis on the same topic examined the impact this event left in the individual memories of the women and collective memory of German occupied Rome. 

Her research interests vary from Rome and its contemporary history to ethnomusicology and family stories. 

Martina is an avid reader, especially Post-War Italian literature like Pierpaolo Pasolini, as well as 20th century American literature like Steinbeck, Hemingway and Salinger. She also loves comics like Zerocalcare, Hugo Pratt and Gipi.

The website which houses the digital exhibit of her OHMA these will remain active, with updates to be added from future projects and interviews.

Casey Dooley (2020)

Casey is an oral historian, writer, and inveterate inquirer whose work is motivated by the extraordinary lives of everyday humans as well as the spaces with which they interact. Merging academic curiosity with two decades as an advertising copywriter and chatbot conversation designer, she’s as interested in the history as she is in the ways it might be shared.

Casey’s work focuses on architecture, class, community, and individual experience. In listening to people share their memories of how they’ve lived and where they’ve been, she finds connection, meaning, and new ways to understand the world at large.

Some of her research interests include:

• Oral history as a conflict-resolution tool that encourages dynamic conversations across cultures and through generations. 

• Alternative interpretations of events, individuals, and experiences that are often condemned or considered contentious. (Or, why jury duty can be a blessing.)

• Those who feel called to serve, from members of the clergy to politicians, firefighters, activists, and beyond. 

• Bridges between social stratification, among them community gardens, mixed-income housing, and spectator sports. 

• Birth and death doulas who serve as stewards at the start of life and shepherds at the end. 

• Architectural palimpsests as works of visual art that provide maps to the memories of people and places in transition.

 Casey holds a BA in Journalism from the college that gave her the scholarship that made it possible, as well as an MA in Oral History from Columbia University. When she’s not talking to strangers, Casey enjoys mudlarking, romanticizing Victorian life, delighting in sleight-of-hand magic, scouring microhistories, and being the unofficial hypewoman of the American Midwest.

Rebecca Kiil (2018)

Rebecca Kiil is a writer, oral historian, and filmmaker. Rebecca earned a B.A. in English from Wake Forest University and an M.A. in oral history at Columbia University, and she attended the Salt Institute for graduate studies in documentary film photography. For almost a decade, Rebecca has been working to document the life histories of family and community members who fled their homeland of Estonia during World War II to escape the brutal Soviet and Nazi regimes, then lived for several years in various displaced persons (DP) camps in Germany and Sweden before resettling in the U.S. Before Rebecca's maternal grandmother passed away in 2020 at the age of 102, Rebecca spent seven years filming, researching, and helping document her grandmother’s story, much of which her grandmother hadn't previously shared with anyone. In her oral history work, Rebecca explores themes such as intergenerational trauma, embodied memory, women and war, ethical loneliness, forced migration/displacement, and the refugee regime. Most recently, she has been exploring her obligation, both as human and oral historian, to individuals who have been forcibly disappeared or otherwise silenced and how the practice of oral history can be applied to capture their stories.

Kae Bara Kratcha (2020)

Kae Bara Kratcha (they/them/theirs) is a librarian and an oral historian. They are a member of the 2020 OHMA cohort and graduated from OHMA in February 2023. Kae's work as an oral historian centers on queer and trans experience, speculative oral history, and queer networks in person and online, organizing, and mutual aid in their neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. Find their thesis project, A Cute and Nice Oral History of Dave's Lesbian Bar, on Oral History Works, and listen to or read their speculative oral history project “bodyhome maker” at https://bodyhomemaker.ohmaexhibits.org/. 

Storm Garner (2018)

Born in Washington D.C. but raised in Paris among equal parts artists and international NGO folk, Storm Garner has been based in a New York City since 2006, when she moved from Poland where she'd interned at the OSCE's Human Rights Implementation Meeting to work on a theatrical production at La Mama Experimental Theatre Company as both actor and composer. Since then she has worked in dozens of New York theatre, film, and Artworld productions as an actor, writer, filmmaker, designer, musician, and curator, all the while earning her BA in Nonfiction Creative Writing from Columbia University's General Studies program part time, as poor health in her teenage years had interrupted her formal studies.

After production designing and costume designing the dramatic feature film SOUTH MOUNTAIN by Hillary Brougher, which premiered at SXSW in 2019, Storm decided it was time for a break from the film industry, and set her sights on Columbia University’s Oral History Master’s Program, which she hoped would help her someday create an easy-to-use certification system to better connect the film industry with the oral history worlds, to work towards solving issues around underrepresented stories and people at the script development stage.

Though her end goal in the oral history world remains linking it with the film industry, she spent the last several years just focusing on learning the ropes, in the OHMA program and with her first major project, The Queens Night Market Vendor Stories Oral History Project, one close to her heart as it documents the cultural impact of a public endeavor--the Queens International Night Market--she helped her now-husband John Wang get off the ground in 2015. The collection will be primarily archived at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, with pandemic-era follow-up interviews additionally archived with the Queens Public Library’s Queens Memory Project. Derivative projects include a cookbook with personal narratives from the mostly-immigrant chef vendors' oral histories, called The World Eats Here: Amazing Food and the Inspiring People Who Make It at New York’s Queens Night Market, published May 2020 by The Experiment, and a "Vendor Portrait" short video series in the works. 

Storm has presented twice about the project at Oral History Association Annual Meetings, and looks forward to continuing to learn alongside future OHMA cohorts, the greater oral history world, and as always... lived experience itself.

Tyler Brady (2021)

Since graduating from OHMA in May 2022, I have contributed the interviews from my thesis to the Radio Diaries podcast series The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island, which was  presented at the Tribeca Festival’s Audio Storytelling Program.

Additionally, I am working on a walkumentary covering the history of Scranton’s Lackawanna Avenue focusing on the demolition of some of its historic buildings, and the city’s modern turn towards restoring its downtown. 

I will begin classes at the CUNY Graduate Center in August 2023, where I am pursuing my doctorate in American history. I look forward to working on the stories of modern activists and protest movements

Chalay Chalermkraivuth (2021)

Chalay Chalermkraivuth (she/they) was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand, as part of the Teochew diaspora. They are now based in Lenapehoking in so-called Brooklyn, where, at their best, they write and organize.

As an American Studies major at Yale College (2020), she conducted an oral history project and wrote a corresponding thesis about queer Asian Americans’ caregiving practices during the early years of the AIDS crisis. The thesis emerged from her interests in queer and trans organizing, queer-of-color critique, Asian American organizing, and healing justice.

They come to OHMA hoping to convey movement history using one of its most potent vehicles, oral history. They believe that oral history can provide a space for healing, reflection, community-building, and political education, and seek to learn to become a practitioner in this tradition.

Sach Takayasu (2019)

In her oral history projects, Sach Takayasu creates paintings together with the narrator, an innovative process from which key memories and stories come to life. The collaboration produces interviews and images that convey multisensory memories of what the narrator experienced, felt, saw, and tasted. The resulting pieces enable the audience to connect with the stories, even if they are not familiar with the narrator's culture, language, or historic experience. 

A quick view of this approach could be seen on her OHMA exhibit page, which also features an audio story about a time and tradition that no longer exists: a marriage arranged in 1928 Japan and how that fared as the couple's world turned upside down. 

Prior to developing this approach, Sach interviewed the Asian American activist, Suki Terada Ports, who illuminated the cultural complexity of fighting HIV/AIDS. 

Sach holds a Master of Arts in Oral History from Columbia University. At INCITE/Columbia Center for Oral History Research, she served as a Fellow and interviewer for its Obama Presidency Oral History Project. She also led the Weatherhead East Asian Institute’s oral history project. 

As a member of the Oral History Association, she serves on its Diversity Committee and has presented in its annual meetings. 

She also serves on her alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University's Board of Advisors for the Dean of Dietrich College.

Margie Cook (2020)

Born and raised in Northern California, Margie Cook moved to New York City in January of 2009. Woefully unprepared for her first winter in the City, she eventually found her groove (and a proper winter wardrobe). She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Literary Studies from The New School.

Her Peruvian ancestry inspired her love for language and history. Her maternal grandfather’s mother tongue was Quechua; her mother’s Spanish; and her's, English. She was inspired to apply to Columbia's OHMA program after an internship at the Peruvian magazine Etiequeta Negra. While working on an issue about climate change, she dove deeper into the histories of indigenous communities leading the charge against polluting corporations. She contributed an article that included an exploration of her own family’s involvement in an environmental protest that sparked a small movement among neighboring towns. She wants to tell the story of endangered languages to ultimately revitalize and preserve them while shedding light on the social and environmental injustices faced by minority and endangered language speakers that she uncovered through her research.

Margie currently works for the Arts and Culture arm of the Brooklyn Public Library where she has led and supported programs aimed at promoting cultural inclusivity through the free exchange of knowledge. The most recent project she's organized, University Open Air, invites immigrant academics back into the classroom to lecture on a range of topics. She is grateful to find herself in this privileged role of helping redefine and expand on the democratic ideals in one of New York City’s most democratic institutions.