Russell A. Vacante is the Founder and Executive Director of the Oral History Research & Learning Center International. His interest in oral history began while he was a graduate student in the American Studies Program at the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB). The program afforded him the opportunity to conduct three years of “field” research in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), through which he earned a master’s degree. While studying abroad, he also obtained a master’s degree from Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Korea.
After returning from Korea, he pursued doctoral studies in Comparative Education through the Department of Social, Historical, and Philosophical Foundations of Education. He received his doctoral degree in 1986.
In May 2023, Dr. Vacante published his book entitled Japanese Colonial Education in Korea, 1910–1945: An Oral History. He currently has two oral history research projects in progress. One project examines the lived educational experiences of individuals in Korea during the post-colonial period (1945–1960). The second project focuses on military research and explores who becomes leaders in the U.S. military services, how they become leaders, and why.
Author of A Shared Authority (1990) and (with photographer Milton Rogovin) Portraits in Steel (1993), Michael Frisch was for many years Professor of American Studies and History, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Editor of Oral History Review (1986-1996), he has served as President of the American Studies Association (2000- 2001), and the Oral History Association (2009-2010).
More recently, he has turned a long academic career in oral and public history into consulting and software development helping organizations create meaningful access to the stories, photos, and oral histories they generate and collect, sharing these in dramatic new ways with the communities that matter to them. Through his Randforce Associates, LLC consulting office, he has focusedon new tools and approaches for media-linked multi-dimensional transcription, multimedia content management, and rich indexing –ways of “putting oral history to use(s).” And through Talking Pictures, LLC, he has partnered in a “short-form oral history” web-app, PixStori, through which users add voice, sound, and stories to photographs, sharing these in social multi-media communities. Both scholarly and digital developments have led to invited keynotes and/or master classes in Australia, Italy and France, Brazil, India, China, Japan, and— for IOHA 2025 in Krakow–Poland.
Jolie Bonanti is a University of California, Berkeley gradute. She received two bachelor's degrees in political science and legal studies, and minored in public policy.