Building Capacity
and
Disrupting Data Science

Jeri E. Wieringa

Overview

2008

BA in Philosophy and English.
Wanted to continue but in a more publicly engaged way.

2009-2011

MAR from Yale Divinity. Discovered Public Humanities and Digital Public Humanities.

2011-2019

PhD in History at George Mason University.
Research Assistant with the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.

2019

Completed and defended my digital dissertation, a computational study of 13,000 SDA periodicals

2015-2016

Joined the Mason Libraries as the Digital Publishing Production Lead

2020-

Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities and Social Theory of Religion at University of Alabama

What is DH?

the critical application of computational methods and tools within humanities research AND the critical development of computational systems informed by the research priorities of the humanities.

Key Priorities for DH

Data Science and
Machine Learning

Infrastructure

Education

How do we develop methods and tools that emphasize data (and any resulting model) as complex, contingent, and contextual?

How do we bring those values into data science?

Data Science and Machine Learning

Infrastructure

What are the resources needed to support digital projects throughout their lifecycle?

How do those become institutionalized, as they are for print?

How do we make collaboration a key aspect of education in the digital humanities?

How do we develop research agendas that can support multiple projects?

Can there be a collaborative dissertation in the humanities?

Education

Assistant Director

  • Creating context for these areas by building relationships and collaborations, both internally and externally
  • Encouraging projects that emphasize complexity, context, and contingency while engaging with data science
  • Work toward shared understandings of the problems and creating space for developing creative solutions

Minimal

By Jeri Wieringa