• Annual Susan Hockey Lecture UCLDH was honoured to host Professor Julianne Nyhan for the annual Susan Hockey Lecture. Her thought-provoking talk explored the intersections of digital humanities, oral history, and data, sparking lively discussion and reflection across disciplines. We’re grateful for her insights and the opportunity to celebrate the legacy of Susan Hockey through such a compelling and well-attended event.
• Voices Unbound Seminar Series From October 2024 to January 2025, we co-organised the Voices Unbound online seminar series, which explored emerging technologies in digital oral history. Topics ranged from text mining and linguistic analysis to metadata standards and critical reflections on AI. The series built on our earlier work around historical data and drew an international audience. Collaborators included TU Darmstadt, UCL, C²DH Luxembourg, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Recordings are available here: https://openlearnware.tu-darmstadt.de/collection/digital-oral-history-exploring-the-state-of-the-art/
• Hands-on Workshops In Term Two, we hosted two fully booked workshops: one on Automated Text Recognition and another on Text Mining.
  • The first, led by Dr Marco Humbel (UCLDH/TU Darmstadt) and Dr Alicia Hughes (The British Museum), introduced participants to OCR and HTR technologies, including a hands-on tutorial using Transkribus.
  • The second, co-led by Dr Humbel and Dr Jiajie Zhang (UCL DIS), explored tf-idf (term frequency–inverse document frequency) as a method for extracting distinctive keywords from large text corpora. Participants applied the technique to their own datasets using Google Labs Notebooks.
• Formalising International Collaboration In June 2025, UCLDH and the Chair of Humanities Data Science and Methodology (HDSM) at TU Darmstadt signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen collaboration between our labs. This agreement promotes shared infrastructure, researcher mobility, joint projects, and sustainable knowledge exchange. While currently focused on UCLDH and HDSM, the initiative lays the groundwork for a broader international network of Digital Humanities Labs.
• Global Publishing Initiatives We launched the Routledge book series Digital Humanities and Intelligent Computing in collaboration with Wuhan University, with four more titles in the pipeline to celebrate global DH achievements.
• Celebrating Our People We congratulate our early-career board member Marco Humbel on his new permanent role at The National Archives. We’re proud of his contributions and look forward to future collaborations. We’ll miss him on the management committee—but we look forward to welcoming someone new in his place (please apply if you’re interested)!

As we look ahead, we’re especially eager to connect with new members of the UCL community—PhD students, new staff, and anyone curious about digital humanities. Whether you’re just beginning to explore this space or are already deeply embedded in it, we invite you to join us.

In the coming months, we’ll be:

• Hosting events and workshops to foster interdisciplinary dialogue
• Launching initiatives to support early-career researchers and postgraduate students
• Strengthening partnerships within UCL and beyond
• Exploring new formats for sharing research and engaging the public

Role Description 

Salary: voluntary
Term: 2-year term once renewable 

We are seeking a new Early Career (ECR) Associate Director of UCLDH to help shape the strategy and direction of UCLDH. You will be an early career scholar interested in digital humanities and based within the UCL community. We define ‘Early Career’ broadly and include those currently registered on a PhD programme. We particularly welcome expressions of interest from candidates with the following interests or expertise: 

• Computational Methods in Humanities and Social Sciences
• Data Science for Cultural and Societal Impact
• Responsible and Ethical Digital Infrastructure
• Multilingual and Cross-Cultural Digital Humanities
• Digital Heritage and Archival Innovation
• AI and Machine Learning in Cultural Contexts

As an active member of the UCLDH Management Group, you will participate in meetings and decisions, and setting the agenda for future activity. Meetings usually take place remotely, approximately six times per year. You are welcome to participate fully or co-lead in the range of activities UCLDH offers, as well as to help establish new ones.  

As an unpaid leadership role, you will not be expected to contribute to day-to-day tasks that would better be classed as employment, unless you deem them of interest to you and your own career development. The successful candidate will receive mentorship from one of the fellow directors. 

UCLDH is committed to a harassment-free space for all members, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion, or technical experience. The candidate will be expected to champion these values. 

This post is linked to the UCL community and candidates should be a student or member of staff at UCL at the time of application, with at least 12 months remaining on their contract or period of study. If appointed, a candidate can remain in post while at UCL or while on the job search, but will be asked to stand down if they are no longer based at UCL and obtain a substantial post at another university or organisation. 

The UCL Centre for Digital Humanities (UCLDH) was founded in 2010 as a cross-faculty research centre that brings together a vibrant network of people who teach and research digital humanities in a wide range of disciplines, in the heart of London. UCLDH is led by a management group: Adam Crymble (Information Studies – Co-Director); Jin Gao (Information Studies – Co-Director); Steven Gray (CASA – Associate Director); and Ulrich Tiedau (Dutch – Associate Director); and coordinated by Lucy Stagg (Institute of Advanced Studies). 

Previous holders of the role have moved on to permanent positions at the University of Glasgow and the National Archives. 

How to Apply 

Please send a 1-page cover letter and 1-page CV to lucy.stagg@ucl.ac.uk  by 10 October 2025. 

Candidates are encouraged to seek the support of their supervisors if relevant, but UCLDH does not need evidence of that support. 

Informal Queries 

Informal queries can be made to Dr Adam Crymble, Co-Director UCLDH at a.crymble@ucl.ac.uk 

UCL’s Department of Information Studies is seeking a Lecturer in Archives and Records Management for a full time academic post. Deadline for applications is 12 November 2023.

“We are seeking an innovative researcher and educator to appoint to a full-time post beginning in April 2024 with a teaching focus in archives, records management and information governance. We are interested in applicants with expertise in any aspect of the discipline, but particularly those who could contribute to ongoing or new teaching and research in one or more of the following areas: access and use of records and archives; digital curation of records and archives; computational and technological advances and recordkeeping; archives and creative practice; anti-oppressive approaches to recordkeeping.”

Full Details available on jobs.ac.uk: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DDD820/lecturer-in-archives-and-records-management

Job Reference: B03-01794