Cecile-Anne Sison

Instructional Technology Lead

Cecile (she/her/hers), is the short Canadian in the office behind the Equipment Checkout Counter. She is in charge of all of the stuff that you may want to borrow from MADS; consulting with Faculty in regards to what equipment their students may need to complete their multimedia assignments. Most of her time (pre-pandemic) was spent leading lab sections for classes, giving workshops, or creating media for our supported courses. She also hires, manages and trains our student staff. In COVID times she helps faculty adapt their courses for remote and hybrid learning.

After spending her formative years in Hong Kong and The Philippines, Cecile attended  film school at Northwestern – focusing on sound, camera assist and producing. As an award-winning Producer, she was given a mentor by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmys) and moved to the City of Angels to work in film. To this day, she does not know how to drive a vehicle so L.A. was not to be, and Chicago (with her snow and amazing food) beckoned her back. Since returning to Chicago, Cecile has directed and edited several projects and her commercial work has screened in theaters across America. Her true passion lies in education though – her first taste of the Digital Humanities came by photographing and cataloging Buddhist Cave Art for the Mellon International Dunhuang Archive and she has been in involved with academia ever since.

As an avid Pokemon Go fan, Cecile is interested in involving more games, game building, and app usage into pedagogy. She has presented about Digital Humanities, gaming in higher education, managing student staff, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at UB Tech, CCUMC (Consortium of College and University Media Centers), TeachX and Educause’ Women Advance IT. As a Weinberg Staff Advisory Board Co-Chair, she oversees the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility initiatives. She also serves on the similarly themed IDEA committee of Educational Technology Collaborative (ETC), an international group of AV Professionals with both institutional and corporate members. She is also the Instructional Technology Interest Group Leader and has newly been elected to the Board of Directors of ETC as Institutional Director. She is a member of MWALLT, HETMA and a founding member of WAVIT. Cecile is also a full-stack developer and Mental Health First Aider.

Please contact Cecile with any questions about equipment and pedagogy (either current or for future projects), or if you need help incorporating new technologies into your curriculum.