Catherine Dhaussy

Present Status and Details

French nationality
41 rue Lebour 93100 - Montreuil - France
Phone: (33) (0)1 48 59 82 79 (answering machine) E-mail address: catherine at funredes.org

Work Experience

• Project Manager (since Nov. 2003) at Association Bernard Gregory, webmaster in charge of the national clearinghouse for scientific employment, for researchers, professors and young PhDs from all fields aiming at working in academic and public research in France.
  
  
• Project Manager and Member of the Management Team (Nov. 1997 - Oct. 2000) for FUNREDES, the "Networks & Development" NGO, located in the Dominican Republic, a non-profit organization which deals with development issues through ICT.
  • Member of the Board of Trustees since January 1999.
  • Member of the coordination team of MISTICA (1998-2000), a project dealing with the social impact of ICT in Latin America and the Caribbean, and with methodologies on remote participation (through communication among multilingual virtual communities).
  • Dec. 1999 - June 2000: in charge of the pilot of CARIBTIC, a regional project dealing with integration, information technologies, and cooperation in the Caribbean: website, thematical research, trilingual electronic conferences (French, Spanish, English).
  • Participation in actions and in research projects led by FUNREDES: writing, translation and revision of texts in French, English and Spanish, international meetings and workshops in the three languages, quality control, study on romance languages and cultures on the Internet.
  
  
  
• Other positions, from 1994 to 2002
  • Project Manager (Dec. 2001-July 2002) at Steppes, a non-profit organization aiming to boost cultural projects and empower civil society organizations. Training, project management, fund raising, etc.
  • Public Relations (March-June 2001) at the théâtre de Châtillon: promotion of cultural events to academic audiences, partnership building.
  • Writing of literature entries for the French version of Encyclopaedia Encarta (2000-2001).
  • Information officer and assistant to the editor (1996-1997) at Nomade, a French Web directory.
  • Teaching assistant (French language) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and webmaster of the "Virtual Cultural Center" (French Department) as a Research Assistant at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1995-1996).
  • Co-creator and editor-in-chief (1994-1996) of Frogmag, the first electronic magazine in French, published in cooperation with the French Embassy in the United States.
  • Librarian and information officer (1994-1995) at CRIDAF (Research Center on Crosscultural Studies between the English-speaking and the French-speaking areas), University of Paris 13.

Education and Skills

Education and diplomas

• 2003: thèse de doctorat, mention très honorable et félicitations du jury (equivalent of a PhD with the highest distinction) at the University of Paris 13, Department of English and American studies. Doctoral thesis: "Utopia and Humanitarian Democracy in France and the United States, 1830-1848: Comparative and Interactive Aspects" (see the abstract). 2004 Marie-France Toinet Award for the best doctoral thesis, by the Society for North-American Studies (SENA).
  
  
• From 1989-90 to 1995-96::
  • graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC): "SLATE" program (Second Language Acquisition & Teacher Education); teaching assistant (1995-96).
  • DEA ("Diplôme d'Études Approfondies", equivalent of the first year of a PhD program) in Crosscultural Studies between the English-speaking and the French-speaking areas, at the University of Paris 13 (with honours, 1995). Dissertation: "The French-speaking Virtual Community on the Internet".
  • B.A. in history (with honours, 1992) and Master's degree in French & Comparative Literature (with the highest distinction, 1994) at the University Charles-de-Gaulle Lille 3
  • "classes préparatoires littéraires" (this corresponds to a three-year comprehensive preparation for the École Normale Supérieure-ENS) in Douai and Lille (1990-1992)
  • school certificate as a mathematics and physics major ("baccalauréat C") in Lens
  • exchange student at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis-Twin Cities in 1993-94 (dean's list), and three months in Canada in 1991 (member of the "Student Working Abroad Programme").

Main conferences and publications

• Article dealing with the American influence on the French debate surrounding prison reform under the July Monarchy, Romantisme, to be published in 2004
• "USA/France, Two Feminisms Between 1830 and 1848: On the Usefulness of Comparison in History", seminar in the History of ideas, University of Paris 8, Nov. 2003
• Catherine Dhaussy and Daniel Pimienta, "MISTICA: Knowledge Management in a Latin American Virtual Community", Novática, 155, Jan.-Feb. 2002, and Upgrade, III, 1, Feb. 2002
• C. Dhaussy and D. Pimienta, "Web Conferencing Systems are Not Providing Virtual Communities with Proactivity: Some Methodology is Required!", and "Users Training: A Crucial but Ignored Issue in Remote Collaborative Environments", Poster session, INET, San Jose, 1999.

Modern Languages

• French: mother tongue. Recording of an audio pedagogical method of French for Dominican teenagers in 1998. Youngest finalist of the national dictation competition ("championnat de France d'orthographe") in 1985. Writing of literature entries for the French version of Encyclopaedia Encarta (Nov. 2000 - Feb. 2001).
  
  
• English: bilingual. Translations since 1995, three months in English-speaking Canada, and two academic years in the USA. Daily use.
  
  
• Spanish: fluent. Two years in the Dominican Republic, professionnal use in France.
  
  
• German: high school level. Studied for six years.

Computer skills

• Internet: fluent. Daily use of basic tools (e-mail since 1993, Web, etc.), training of small groups.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: good computer level. Daily use of office applications; knowledge in computer-aided translation.

Extra-Curricular Activities

• Voluntary activities: follow-up of the MISTICA project (since 2000), member of the editorial committee of Formation par la recherche, a newspaper aiming at boosting professional integration of young PhD graduates (2002-2003), vice-president of the French Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC) from May 1998 to May 2000, chairperson in communication at the Minnesota International Student Association (1994).
  
  
• Music: piano (9 years), choral singing (8 years; member of the Choeur de chambre de la Cité since 1999, secretary of the Board of Trustees since 2003).
  
  
• Sport: participation in the French national volleyball junior league; biking and hiking, badminton.