DHO staff are drawn from divergent expertise throughout the digital humanities. Each bring their own unique interests, specialities and passion to the the HSIS initiative. Collectively, the DHO provides support across the entire spectrum of the digital humanities.
Director, Susan Schreibman
Dr Schreibman joined the DHO from the University of Maryland, where she was Assistant Dean and Head of Digital Collections and Research. She has previously served as Assistant Director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, and Professor of Professional and Technical Communication at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Dr Schreibman has an MA from the University of Pennsylvania in English and Creative Writing and an MA in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama from University College Dublin (UCD). She received her PhD from UCD for her doctoral thesis entitled: ‘The Thomas MacGreevy Chronology: A Documentary Life, 1855-1934.’ She was also the holder of a prestigious Newman Postdoctoral Fellowship where she began The MacGreevy Archive (http://macgreevy.org)
She is the principal developer of The Versioning Machine (www.v-machine.org) and is the founding editor and principal developer of Irish Resources in the Humanities (www.irith.org). Dr Schreibman is the Vice Chair of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Consortium, on the Executive of the Association of Computers in the Humanities, and is Chair of the Modern Language Association’s Committee on Information Technology. She is also on the Management Committee of EU COST Action 32, Open Scholarly Communication, and ISO704 Interedition
Dr Schreibman’s fields of expertise are textual editing, especially as it is applied to the newer technologies, TEI text encoding, project management for digital humanities projects, and Irish modernism.
Contact: s [dot] schreibman [at] dho [dot] ie
IT Manager, Don Gourley
Don Gourley is the Information Technology Manager for the DHO. Previously, Don was the Director of Information Technology for the Washington Research Library Consortium. In addition to managing IT services, he served as the lead architect for a number of library information systems, such as a personalised portal for library patrons, an intra-consortium borrowing and document delivery service, and a repository for managing and preserving digital collections. Prior to WRLC, Don managed software projects and IT services at the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Maryland, and before that worked as a software design engineer with Hewlett-Packard. He holds a BA in Mathematics from the University of Virginia and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Colorado. Don's professional interests include information systems architecture, digital library development, and data and digital asset management.
Contact: d [dot] gourley [at] dho [dot] ie
Web Developer, Paolo Battino
Paolo Battino is a web developer with the Digital Humanities Observatory. His specialisation is in human factors and human-computer interaction. He has worked as human factor expert in international Air Traffic Control research projects within the european agency Eurocontrol. He was in charge of conducting experiments to test novel procedures and radar visual tools to increase safety and capacity in air traffic over Europe. His most recent experience involved the design and development of web-based Graphic Information Systems to the UNESCO-funded rehabilitation of Bethlehem area, in Palestine. The tools developed by his team allow architects, city council staff members and citizens to access crucial information about local regulation and urban planning. Paolo Battino holds a BAV in Communication and Graphic Design from Laval University (Québec City, Canada) and an MS in Human-Computer Interaction from University of Siena (Italy).
Contact: p [dot] battino [at] dho [dot] ie
Digital Humanities Specialist, K. Faith Lawrence
Faith Lawrence is a digital humanities specialist with the Digital
Humanities Observatory. She did her first degree in ancient history
with a special interest in comparative mythology. Progressing sideways she completed a masters in archaeological science (computing) before finding herself in a computer science department researching online communities, narrative and the semantic web. Her doctorate looked at emergent semantic and web 2.0 technologies through the case study of online fiction archives and author communities. Her most recent projects include Electronic Visualisation of C19 French literary-scientific texts: Flaubert's Tentation de saint Antoine.
Contact: f [dot] lawrence [at] dho [dot] ie
Metadata Manager, Dot Porter
Dot Porter is the Metadata Manager for the DHO. Her previous position was at the University of Kentucky, where she served as Program Coordinator for the Collaboratory for Research in Computing for Humanities at the Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments. Dot's main interest is with image-based encoding, that is, using digital technologies to create physical description of text-bearing objects and to create links between text encoding and digital images. Dot has worked on several digital editing projects including the Electronic Boethius (dir. Kevin Kiernan), the Electronic Aelfric (dir. Aaron Kleist) and the Pembroke 25 Project (dir. Paul Szarmach), and has provided metadata development support for the Homer Multitext Project (dir. Casey Due and Mary Ebbott) and text encoding support for several projects directed by faculty at the University of Kentucky. Dot has served on the Technical Council of the Text Encoding Initiative and is currently the Executive Secretary of the Association for Computing and the Humanities, the Chair of the Medieval Academy of America's Committee on Electronic Resources, and serves on the Executive Board of the Digital Medievalist. Dot holds an MA in Medieval Studies from Western Michigan University and an MS in Library Science from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Contact: d [dot] porter [at] dho [dot] ie
Digital Humanities Specialist, Shawn Day
Shawn Day is a Digital Humanities Specialist with the DHO. Shawn is affiliated with the History Department at McMaster University (Canada) where he is completing a PhD specializing in the social and economic circumstances of the nineteenth century retail liquor trade. He applies digital, spatial and social network analysis to the study of the relationships between credit, respectability, and maintaining order in the Victorian community. His most recent articles have examined the social dimensions of the Victorian public mental hospital. Using GIS and statistical modeling tools, these illuminate the significant rural component of the urban asylum and raises new questions surrounding the foreign-born who find themselves confined to the institution. Shawn is involved in a number of successful and innovative digital humanities projects throughout Canada. Most recently he has worked with large manuscript census databases in the 1871/1891 census project (University of Guelph). He is a team member of the national TAPoR text analysis portal project and the Network for Canadian History and the Environment (NiCHE).
Prior to undertaking the PhD, Shawn spent a number of years in the private technology sector where he founded a number of businesses and served in marketing, research and development management roles.
Contact: s [dot] day [at] dho [dot] ie
Programme Coordinator, Emily Cullen
Emily Cullen completed her doctorate in English at NUI, Galway where she was an IRCHSS Government of Ireland scholar between 2004-2007. Her thesis explores the cultural functions of the Irish harp as visual icon, literary trope and musical instrument in the construction of an Irish self-image. During her research she gained an insight into the value of digital humanities as she accessed and utilised a number of primary source materials through online repositories. She has published articles on political representations of the harp in bardic discourses, as well as twentieth-century, and contemporary, Irish poetry. An experienced events manager, Emily worked in a variety of arts management posts prior to commencing her doctoral research. She was the Administrator of the professional Irish language theatre company, Amharclann de hÍde, the inaugural Arts Officer of NUI, Galway between 1999 – 2002, and Programme Director of the Patrick Kavanagh Centenary Celebrations in 2004. She is also a teacher and performer of the Irish harp and a widely published poet. Her first collection, No Vague Utopia, was published by Ainnir in 2003. In 2004, she read her work as part of Poetry Ireland’s ‘Introductions’ series.
Contact: e [dot] cullen [at] dho [dot] ie
