Advancing the humanities with code, communication, and community.

We are a vibrant community of practitioners who use state-of-the-art digital tools to enrich education and research in the humanities. Our programs integrate digital and humanities education, teaching, and research.

Projects

About

  • Enhancing the humanities through programming.

    Code in the Mellon-funded programs in Digital Humanities centers on an undergraduate-focused Laboratory for Digital Humanities (dhmit) that creates computer tools for solving problems in the humanities. In the lab, students harness their skills in computer science and programming to advance the state of knowledge in the humanities and to help empower less technically adept researchers and enthusiasts to use digital tools on their own. All code from the project is open source and hosted on GitHub.

  • Faculty & Student Research

    The Programs in Digital Humanities supports a DH-focused, collaboration-based seed grant program that allows Faculty and Staff to be in residence in the lab and work closely with undergraduate students, postdocs, and technical professionals to create projects related to their research and teaching. Faculty and students learn to speak each other's language, students learn the joys and difficulties of faculty research interests, and, by communicating at each stage of the research and development, avoid the pitfalls that plague so many DH projects.

  • MIT, Boston, and graduate engagement.

    The DH programs at MIT host a lecture series and beginning in 2019 visiting scholar residencies and hackathons. Additional undergraduate and graduate courses in DH are planned, culminating in a graduate certificate in Digital Humanities. The community of digital practitioners reflects the rich diversity of the campus and the nation. Inclusivity is a core value of the Programs in Digital Humanities at MIT.

  • 1. Code Enhancing the humanities through programming.

    Code in the Mellon-funded programs in Digital Humanities centers on an undergraduate-focused Laboratory for Digital Humanities (dhmit) that creates computer tools for solving problems in the humanities. In the lab, students harness their skills in computer science and programming to advance the state of knowledge in the humanities and to help empower less technically adept researchers and enthusiasts to use digital tools on their own. All code from the project is open source and hosted on GitHub.

  • 2. Communication Faculty & Student Research

    The Programs in Digital Humanities supports a DH-focused, collaboration-based seed grant program that allows Faculty and Staff to be in residence in the lab and work closely with undergraduate students, postdocs, and technical professionals to create projects related to their research and teaching. Faculty and students learn to speak each other's language, students learn the joys and difficulties of faculty research interests, and, by communicating at each stage of the research and development, avoid the pitfalls that plague so many DH projects.

  • 3. Community MIT, Boston, and graduate engagement.

    The DH programs at MIT host a lecture series and beginning in 2019 visiting scholar residencies and hackathons. Additional undergraduate and graduate courses in DH are planned, culminating in a graduate certificate in Digital Humanities. The community of digital practitioners reflects the rich diversity of the campus and the nation. Inclusivity is a core value of the Programs in Digital Humanities at MIT.

Lab

Code, Analyze, Visualize - Hack! the Humanities

Join the Digital Humanities Lab for your UROP and create computer tools for solving problems in the humanities! Explore machine learning through coding, work with large and interesting data sets with a humanities focus, and build a community with your peers while bridging computer science with the humanities.

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A group picture of the entire Digital Humanities lab
Members of the lab working together on their computers

Faculty Research

In October of each year, the Projects in Digital Humanities at MIT invite Faculty and Teaching Staff of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences to propose projects in research and teaching to conduct in the lab the following year. Projects are chosen for student learning opportunities, feasibility, and faculty commitment. Once selected, faculty spend part time for a semester in the lab as a substitute for one class of teaching (the DH programs compensate department and section heads for replacement teaching). Faculty in the lab work closely with undergraduate students, postdocs, and technical professionals to create projects related to their research and teaching. Faculty and students learn to speak each others' language, students learn the joys and difficulties of faculty research interests, and, by communicating at each stage of the research and development, avoid the pitfalls that plague so many DH projects.

Prof. Fox Harrell presenting his research
Stephanie Frampton, Professor of Literature
Portrait of Sandy Alexandre

Faculty Spotlight

Sandy Alexandre

Alexandre’s work takes into serious account the ways in which an ecology comprised of people, places, and things can, at once, reverberate and attempt to negotiate the various instances of racial violence that mark the aggregate of U.S. history.

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People

Staff

  • Stephanie Ann Frampton

    Faculty Director & Associate Professor of Literature

  • Michael Scott Cuthbert

    Faculty Director 2018-20 & Associate Professor of Music

  • Ryaan Ahmed

    Technical Director & Senior Research Engineer

  • Erica Zimmer

    Research Associate

  • Nicole Fountain

    Administrative Assistant II

UROP Students

  • Jason Lin,
  • Justice Vidal,
  • Meesue Kim,
  • Michelle He,
  • Ning-Er Lei

Program Alumni

  • Stephan Risi

    Postdoctoral Associate

  • Lisa Tagliaferri

    Postdoctoral Associate

  • Luke Hollis

    Postdoctoral Fellow

  • Bridget Johnston

    Administrative Assistant (Temporary)

  • Alan Abreu,
  • Alena Culbertson,
  • Amy Lei,
  • Angel Yang,
  • Angelica Castillejos,
  • Assel Ismoldayeva,
  • Benjamin Gao,
  • Carol Pan,
  • Catherine Mei,
  • Charlotte Minsky,
  • Christina Wang,
  • Crista Falk,
  • Derek Yen,
  • Dina Atia,
  • Dylan Weber,
  • Elena Boal,
  • Elsa Itambo,
  • Emily Caragay,
  • Felix Li,
  • Felix Tran,
  • Funing Yang,
  • Howard DaCosta,
  • Ife Ademolu-Odeneye,
  • Isaac Redlon,
  • Ivy Mao,
  • Jessica Wu,
  • Jordan Wilke,
  • Katherine Xu,
  • Katherine Zeng,
  • Keith Murray,
  • Kelsey Merrill,
  • Kidist Adamu,
  • Maritza Gallegos,
  • Mayowa Songonuga,
  • Melissa Calvert,
  • Michelle Li,
  • Mingfei Duan,
  • Montserrat Garza,
  • Ophelia Zhu,
  • Parul Singh,
  • Raquel Garcia,
  • Rikita Bansal,
  • Sage Maxwell,
  • Samantha York,
  • Sergio Perez,
  • Shobhita Sundaram,
  • Sirena Yu,
  • Sophia Zhi,
  • Stephan Ducrepin,
  • Susanna Chen

    • UROP Students

Steering Committee

Events

Community

DH Across MIT

The MIT Computational Cultures Initiative brings scholars from SHASS together with leading technologists to think about the social, cultural, and political impact of computing tools and digital devices.

The Center for Advanced Virtuality is an initiative by MIT Open Learning that will help determine how MIT can use a group of technologies including virtual and mixed reality to better serve human needs.

HyperStudio is a DH research group in Comparative Media Studies/Writing led by Dr. Kurt Fendt. Successes include many projects including the software package, Annotation Studio.

The MIT Libraries maintain a list of collections of DH Projects at MIT and Beyond.

The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) at MIT showcases numerous faculty, staff, and student projects in Digital Humanities.