![\"A](\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/JessHomestead_3.jpg\")
<\/a>Jessica Linzel stands in front of The Brown Homestead. Settled by Loyalist John Brown and his family in 1785, The Brown Homestead located in St. Catharines, is one of the oldest Loyalist homes in Ontario. Opened to the public in 2015, the historic site welcomes visitors as part of its mission to preserve and maintain significant heritage buildings and sites.<\/p><\/div>\n
The Mapping the Brown Homestead<\/a> project, which uses geographic information system (GIS) mapping technology to create interactive web-based maps of the historic site, has been successful in engaging visitors to the region.<\/p>\n \u201cThis project gets a lot of traction from people because it is a great way of visualizing the cultural landscape of the Homestead and how it has changed over time, including land ownership transitions and how the area was settled,\u201d said Linzel.<\/p>\n GIS mapping was a skill Linzel gained at Brock while learning to create interactive exhibitions with digital media.<\/p>\n “Digital history is the next big trend. How do you do create these exhibitions and have them still be research-based? GIS technology is the key,\u201d said Linzel.<\/p>\n Participating in Brock research initiatives with faculty members as a research assistant while pursuing her undergraduate and master\u2019s degrees in history was foundational to Linzel\u2019s professional path.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Vlossak, Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of History in Brock\u2019s Faculty of Humanities, worked closely with Linzel on a number of research projects while she was a Brock student, most notably the Sport Oral History Archive (SOHA)<\/a> connected to the Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games hosted in part at the University.<\/p>\n \u201cJessica was instrumental in the creation of the SOHA as project lead for the Canada Games Collection. In this role, Jessica took on a wide variety of responsibilities, including recording, editing and transcribing interviews, communicating with our contributors and partners, and building the SOHA website,\u201d Vlossak said.<\/p>\n