Expert appointed to develop digital scholarship
A professor has been appointed to develop the growing field of digital scholarship at the University.
Professor Melissa Terras, who takes up the new Chair of Digital Cultural Heritage in October, joins from UCL where she has been Director of UCL Centre for Digital Humanities since 2011. She is also Professor of Digital Humanities in UCL's Department of Information Studies, and Vice Dean of Research in UCL’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
Her appointment as Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage strengthens the University’s commitment to applying data science, in this case to address questions related to culture and society.
Digital techniques in research and teaching
Professor Terras will also develop training and degree programmes as well as supporting staff and students in using digital techniques in research and teaching.
Melissa Terras has a background in Classical Art History, English Literature, Computing Science and Engineering.
Her research focuses on computational techniques that facilitate research in the arts and humanities that would otherwise be impossible without digital technology.
Building on world-leading expertise
Professor Terras serves on the Board of Curators of the University of Oxford Libraries, and on the Board of Trustees of the National Library of Scotland.
She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and Fellow of the British Computer Society.
I’m excited to be joining the University of Edinburgh. There are many opportunities to build on world-leading collections and expertise, and to harness, and help drive, technological change. The Arts, Humanities, and Social and Historical Sciences have important skills, approaches, and experience in dealing with societal data, which can benefit all, especially as we move towards Big Data analysis for all aspects of life. I’m looking forward to working with existing staff, and developing new research projects, in this space.
The University has established world-leading expertise in Data Science as well as in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and I’m delighted that Professor Terras will be joining us to help make even more of the synergies between these areas. I’m delighted that we have appointed such an eminent scholar to this new role and am very much looking forward to working with her.