Richard Watts | Director, Center for Research on Vermont

Richard Watts is the Director of the Center for Research on Vermont, a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography and the founder of the Center of Community News (CCN). Richard is the coordinator of ¶¶Òõ̽̽’s Community News Service program, pairing students with professional editors to write stories for community papers. Richard is also the former coordinator of the internship program in the College of Arts & Sciences. During Richard's leadership of the CAS internship programs, student for-credit from about 250 to almost 800. In coordination with CRVT, the College of Arts & Sciences created the Community of Practice intern program which led to the successful spin off of the Community News Service and served as a model for the Center for Community News. As Director of CRVT, Richard increased the budget ten-fold and added new programs in , internships, media and communications, video and podcasts. Richard also that investigated police funding, telecommuting, town official demographics and Vermont in-migration among others. Richard is a co-founder of and the teacher of classes in transportation planning, reporting and Vermont studies.

Trish Denton | Center Coordinator, Storytelling & Community Engagement

Trish Denton is an art director, producer, and storyteller specializing in socially engaged art & community-based projects.  She is the founder of , a nonprofit organization that creates collaborative theater, storytelling, and multimedia experiences with youth and community groups. At Dartmouth College, Trish was involved with , a documentary theater project producing work within rehabilitation and correctional facilities. She has taught ethnographic storytelling approaches, community documenting, and visual storytelling at Dartmouth College and Castleton College, as well as a variety of university, college, library, and historical society classrooms with . As CRVT Coordinator, Trish mentors our interns and oversees research, projects, and publications supported by the center. Trish also produces CRVT's events, publishes our research newsletter, and develops content and visual storytelling to strengthen our membership and student initiatives. 

Kevin Graffagnino | Senior Consultant and Chair of Publications

Kevin Graffagnino began his career at ¶¶Òõ̽̽ library, where he served as curator of Vermont history from 1978 to 1995, as head of Special Collections for two years, as a member of the graduate faculty, and as an adjunct member of the Canadian Studies program. Graffagnino was Library Director at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin from 1995 to 1999, Executive Director of the Kentucky Historical Society from 1999 to 2003, and Executive Director of the Vermont Historical Society from 2003 to 2008, and director of the William L. Clements library at the University of Michigan from 2008 to 2019. He was an antiquarian book dealer during his undergraduate years and has conducted benefit book auctions for a number of libraries and museums in Vermont. Graffagnino is the editor or author of 22 books and numerous articles on various aspects of early American history, book collecting, history administration, and related topics. He has served on a variety of state, regional and national boards, committees and commissions, and has given more than 1,000 public lectures on historical subjects.

Adrien Sabathier | Visiting Fellow, University of Geneva

Adrien Sabathier is a political science PhD student and teaching assistant at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.  His research is focused on social media and the public sphere. Using mostly qualitative and interpretive methods he is interested in understanding how people navigate between online and offline spaces and how they make sense of the world around them.

His current research (PhD dissertation) is an in-depth case study of Burlington, Vermont’s public sphere. Adrien is interested in how Front Porch Forum, Vermont’s own local social media platform, impacts the local public sphere and how it could be a model for a new civically-minded internet. Over the past three years he has done fieldwork in Vermont and has conducted dozens of interviews for his Master’s thesis. For his current project he will use survey, diary and web tracking methods as well conduct more interviews. His dissertation supervisors are Nathalie Giger, associated professor at the University of Geneva, and Ethan Zuckerman, founder of the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure at UMass Amherst.

Evan Trafton | Digital Ambassador & Strategic Communications Intern

Evan Trafton is a Senior studying Computer Science in the College of Engineering with a minor in Applied Design. His interests include Martial Arts, Snowboarding and Hiking. He is also passionate about design and utilizes this skill in web design and development projects. He is currently working as CRVT's digital ambassador to create a website that equips Vermont newspapers and citizens to track the legislative activity of their local politicians, including bill action, summaries and delegate voting.

Katherine McGee | Illustrations & Book Editing Intern

Katherine McGee is an Undergraduate Student in the College of Arts and Sciences, studying Environmental Studies and History. Some of her interests include Environmental and Indigenous history as well as any history having to do with the Hudson River Valley, where she grew up. Holding the position of Illustrations and Book Editor Intern at the Center for Research on Vermont, she will be collecting documents, maps, artifacts and many other items from the Special Collections. This includes working on current CRVT projects and contributing a column to the Research Newsletter.