EADH Executive Committee 2022 elections: candidates

Merisa Martinez

I was elected as a member of the EADH Executive Board just as the DH 2019 conference was ending in Utrecht. Almost as soon as the work of our new term was underway, EADH and all our DH-focused associations underwent a massive shift because of the pandemic. Many of us were confined to our homes due to lockdowns and therefore all our work was done from a distance, with no real opportunities to meet in person. And while this made our work considerably harder, the shared experience also brought us closer together. We worked to reorient two major conferences from in-person to hybrid experiences (DH2020 in Ottowa City, Canada and EADH 2021 in Krasnoyarsk, Russia), and to create opportunities for other colleagues who were interested in taking part in EADH activities. I also took over the role as the EADH Representative to the European Alliance of Social Sciences and Humanities (EASSH), a governing body that works to increase funding and support SSH-based policy in the European Union.
If I am elected for another term, my focus will continue to be on representing EADH at the EASSH level (advocating particularly for the importance of EU funding and training networks for Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics) and on providing support to plan the next EADH and ADHO conferences. I would also like to see that the assessment we created for Small Grants funding applications is put into effect. As a person working in library and information science, I will continue to advocate for this perspective on the board. My hope for the next term is that we will finally be able to meet in person again and that we can increase the number of bursaries available for newer members of our community to participate in our conferences.

Gabor Palko

As an associate professor at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), I am applying for membership of the EADH EC, whose values I share, and I believe I can bring my practical experience gained locally to apply on a European scale.
When we relaunched the DH research and education in Hungary, we were operating in an institutional vacuum. A lot has been done in the last decade: under my leadership we have created the first university department of DH, I am editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Digital Humanities and we are implementing a large-scale research programme in interinstitutional cooperation (National Laboratory for Digital Heritage) that will hopefully put Hungary on the international DH-map. I am convinced that DH-
relations in CEE region should be strengthened. In the coming years, we can already see several expansion routes ahead: launching training programmes, hosting international conferences, setting up the Hungarian AO of EADH.
I feel incredibly privileged to be involved in these pioneering activities in a field that is developing so rapidly and diversely. These stages of institutionalisation efforts have been guided by an attitude of inclusiveness and diversity that in fact pervades the whole field of DH.

Anna-Maria Sichani

I am currently a Post-Doc Research Associate in Digital Humanities at Digital Humanities Research Hub, School of Advanced Study, University of London, working on the AHRC-Towards a National Collection- funded project “The Congruence Engine: Digital Tools for New Collections-Based Industrial Histories”, specialising in computational archival science, data modelling, research infrastructure and digital pedagogy. I studied and worked across four (semi-)European countries (Greece, France, The Netherlands, UK), following an interdisciplinary research path. As an early career researcher, I collaborated in various Digital Humanities projects, infrastructures and networks (Programming Historian, DiXiT, DARIAH). I am one of the founding members of the newly-established ‘Greek Digital Humanities Research Network’ and I ’d like to bring insights from the Southeast European region and early careers alt-ac professionals to the benefit of EADH.
I am standing for election for the EADH Executive Committee as I want to continue bringing my interdisciplinary experience and community attitude into empowering the EADH’s diversity and inclusivity agenda. I am keen also to explore requirements and opportunities towards open digital scholarship for the EADH community, by enabling inclusive, fair and engaging access to community’s resources, especially for less-represented communities of practice.

Valeria Vitale

I am a Lecturer in Digital Humanities at the University of Sheffield. Before this role, I worked at The Alan Turing Institute, the British Library, and the Institute of Classical Studies. From 2017 to 2020 I was part of the investigative team of the Pelagios Project. When Pelagios transitioned to an association, I was named its Chair (2019-2022). I am passionate about introducing digital tools and methods to humanities researchers, and I have taught these topics to several audiences, from undergraduate students to cultural heritage professionals, and in different contexts, from classrooms to public engagement events.

For the past ten years I have been very active in the Digital Humanities community, and participated, as co-organiser, to several collaborative projects, including the Sunoikisis Digital Classics consortium, the Linked Pasts Symposium, the SIG on Computer Vision for Digital Heritage, and the Digital Classicist London Seminars. My research interests lie in the representation of ancient places, as semantically enriched maps as well as 3D visualisations. As a member of the EADH executive committee I will endeavour to support more diverse views in the community, and to promote a special attention towards the ethical issues that surround digital humanities research.