dhlab@loyola

DH Fellows participate in ongoing projects at the Loyola Digital Humanities Lab. Lab projects are focused on the the creation of editions of historical texts in Latin or modern translations, the organization of textual data using Linked Data technologies and principles, data visualization (typically with modern javascript frameworks), and machine assisted data analysis (topic-modeling, td-idf, sentiment analysis, machine learning classification, etc.)

DH Fellows participate in activities in a graduated way that allows them to build their DH skills over time. By the end of their term, Fellows will have been exposed to a number of skills increasingly essential in any career where information is at the center. Information management has always been a critical piece of humanities research, but as the world changes, the technical skills needed to work in this area are changing. Library, museum, publishing, and archival work is not conducted the same way it was 20 or even 10 years ago. Skills learned as a DH fellow will give students a good sense of the kinds of modern technical skills need to work in these traditional humanistic career paths.

The fellowship lasts the course of a year and a summer (summer, fall, spring, summer). Fellows work for 5 hours a week and are paid $15/hr for during the first summer, fall, and spring term. In early spring, students put together a proposal for their own research project related to the texts they have been working with during the fellowship. As a final outcome, student projects are expected to produce an edited text, a research, article, and self built web application with which to publish the results of their research. The project proposal is sent to the Center for Humanities for review. If accepted, the fellow receives $4,000 to conduct their research over the final summer. Further, Fellows during their final summer will act as a mentor to new incoming Fellow.

For more information contact the DH Lab director, Dr. Jeffrey C. Witt (jcwitt [at] loyola [dot] edu).

Skills and technologies practiced during fellowship include:

• Learning to read historical texts
• Text extraction (via image segmentation, OCR or HTR)
• Using the command line
• Git Version Control and Social Collaboration using Github
• TEI, XML, and Oxygen XML editor (a standard software for advanced publishing)
• HTML, CSS, Javascript: basic front end web application technologies

Advanced Fellows may be exposed to:

• Topic Modelling with Python
• Machine Learning analysis with Python and Tensor Flow
• Advanced Javascript Frameworks (e.g. React)
• Linked Data, Ontology Building, Protege, OWL (Web Ontology Language), Description Logic

Past/Current Fellows:

• 2013-2014 Natalie Tsottles
• 2014-2015 Paul Lozowicki
• 2015-2016 Kjerstin Burdiek
• 2015-2016 Calix O'Hara
• 2016-2017 Maddie Campbell
• 2019-2020 Ema-Joanne Brauchler (See Ema's work, Exploring Bullinger)
• 2021-2022 Robbie Buhite
• 2022-2023 Christa Guerra

• 2023-2025 Evy Ryan

• 2024 Anthony Loia

• 2025 Liam Holden