UROP Spotlight: Samantha York

Sam York, DH Lab UROP
Posted November 16, 2020

UROP Spotlight: Samantha York

It is our pleasure to introduce the DH community to Samantha York (MIT '23), a veteran member of the DH lab.

From the earliest stages of York’s time at MIT, she has been drawn to the DH lab’s distinctive blend of research methods and subject matter. “I had always considered myself a computer person in high school, but one that also really liked the social sciences,” she notes. “When I first heard about the DH lab, it seemed like the perfect way to merge those two things. And it is!” A member of our inaugural Fall 2018 cohort, York began working in the lab through the Gender/Novels project (now the Gender Analysis Toolkit), which explores linguistic patterns characterizing gendered discourse in novels primarily of the nineteenth century, and she has since taken a leading role in multiple lab projects.

Yet beyond her research interests, York highlights the sense of community she has found in the DH lab over the years. “I’ve come to think of it as a family,” she notes. “In the hack sessions, as everyone is trying to come up with the best way to implement a specific analysis or feature, we’re gaining experience that you just aren’t able to find in a classroom.” This collaborative, exploratory spirit is one York also epitomizes beyond the lab: reworking her dorm’s database, teaching incoming students during Interphase EDGE, and enthusiastically following politics are just a few of the many ways her energy has been felt in the broader MIT environment. We are thrilled to welcome her back to the DH lab this year!