Digital Humanities Summer Fellowships

scholars in the fellowship program having a lively discussion at the conference table

The Simpson Center offers annual summer fellowships for faculty and doctoral students to pursue research projects that use digital technologies in innovative and intensive ways and/or explore the historical, social, aesthetic, and cross-cultural implications of digital cultures. The program has three primary goals:

  • To animate knowledge—using rich media, dynamic databases, and visualization tools
  • To circulate knowledge—among diverse publics
  • To understand digital culture—historically, theoretically, aesthetically, and generatively

UW faculty and doctoral candidates are eligible to apply either on an individual basis or in teams for Digital Humanities Summer Fellowships every fall. Where research in the humanities is often undertaken by a single scholar, this program enables faculty and graduate students to collaborate with each other as well as with designers, information technologists, and librarians. Applications from scholars using the open-source multimodal authoring and publishing platforms are particularly encouraged; the Simpson Center is an affiliate of the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture. Review additional eligibility and application information for faculty and graduate students

Up to 8 scholars—4 faculty and 4 doctoral students—will be selected each year; they will be required to be in residence for 6-8 weeks during the summer and will meet weekly to share their research. In addition to summer salary, each will have a research budget that can be used for expenses such as hourly support and software.

The Simpson Center gratefully acknowledges the support of a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as well as many donors to the endowment which is underwriting these fellowships.

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Cohort Archives

2023 - 2024 Digital Humanities Summer Fellows

Cristina Sánchez-Martín looks into the camera while standing in front of a white wall.
Assistant Professor
English
Portrait photo of Taiko against a white curtain background
Doctoral Candidate
English
Portrait of Hannah Frydman standing in front of a brown wall wearing glasses.
Assistant Professor
French & Italian Studies
A close-up portrait of Bettina Judd wearing glasses and a dark shirt.
Assistant Professor
Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies
Headshot of Melanie Walsh standing in front of a grey wall wearing glasses.
Assistant Professor
Information School
Mal Ahern looks at a roll of film that has been unwound.
Assistant Professor
Cinema & Media Studies
Photo of Gabrielle Benabdallah wearing a dark shirt and standing in front of a beige wall.
Doctoral Candidate
Human Centered Design and Engineering
Melinda Cohoon looks into the camera while standing in front of a dark background.
Doctoral Candidate
Near and Middle Eastern Studies
Nathanael in front of a backdrop of green foliage, smiling while wearing a blue blazer and floral shirt.
Doctoral Student
Human Centered Design and Engineering

2022 - 2023 Digital Humanities Summer Fellow

Samantha Thompson stands in front of a beige wall while wearing glasses and a jacket.

Samantha Thompson (she/her/hers)

Doctoral Candidate

"We Deserve Rent Control": Digital histories of rent control debates in Seattle, USA and Vancouver, Canada

This project brings together archival material and interviews in a StoryMap to trace digital histories of rent control debates in Seattle, USA and Vancouver, Canada. Understanding the cities’ shared stories of rent control, despite their diverse national contexts, helps us to conceptualize the ways that urban politics are situated within racial capitalist and settler-colonial histories/presents of housing development. The purpose of the project is to provide a tool to strengthen understandings of ways that housing politics are situated within power structures of race, gender, sexuality, and class as we engage with one piece of housing history is of particular importance because of the prominence of rent control debates in contemporary housing debates.