New Digital Humanities Head
Posted on 01/04/2011
Professor Andrew Prescott
A new Head has been announced for the world’s largest department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London. Professor Andrew Prescott, who will take up the appointment to the Chair of Digital Humanities in summer of 2011, is a former curator of manuscripts at the British Library.
Andrew served as British Library contact for a number of pioneering digitisation projects, including the Electronic Beowulf. He has also worked in the Humanities Research Institute at Sheffield University and is currently Director of Research at Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute at the University of Glasgow.
King’s world-renowned Centre for Computing in the Humanities has recently changed its name to the Department of Digital Humanities (DDH). Digital Humanities has long been recognised by the College as an academic discipline in its own right, the first institution in the world to do so, and the new name reflects both this and King’s continued support for its teaching and research activities.
DDH is an international leader in the application of technology in the arts and humanities, and in the social sciences. The primary objective of DDH is to study the possibilities of computing for arts and humanities scholarship and, in collaboration with local, national and international research partners across the disciplines, to design and build applications which realise these possibilities, in particular those which produce online research publications.
Andrew Prescott commented: 'I am very excited to be joining a department of the outstanding international stature of DDH. I congratulate King's College London on its vision and ambition in investing in the development of the digital humanities at this vital time in its development. I look forward to working with my new colleagues at King's'.
The Department runs an ambitious and varied teaching programme, including MA programmes in Digital Humanities, Digital Culture and Society, and Digital Asset Management (in collaboration with the Centre for e-Research at King's). The Department also hosts the long-standing PhD programme in the Digital Humanities, the first established in the world, which has recently been expanded to include collaborative supervisory arrangement with a dozen Departments and Centres within the School of Arts and Humanities.
Notes to editors
Department of Digital Humanities
The Department of Digital Humanities (DDH) is an academic department in the School of Arts and Humanities in King's College London. Formerly called the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, DDH is an international leader in the application of technology in the arts and humanities. The primary objective of DDH is to study the possibilities of computing for arts and humanities scholarship and, in collaboration with local, national and international research partners across its disciplines, to seek to realise those possibilities.
DDH is typically involved in in more than 30 major research projects at any one time, with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, Joint Information Systems Committee, the British Academy, the Andrew W Mellon Foundation and other major funders. DDH has generated more than £17 million in grants over the past seven years.
Further information is available on the DDH website.
King's College London
King's College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (2010 QS international world rankings), The Sunday Times 'University of the Year 2010/11' and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has nearly 23,500 students (of whom more than 9,000 are graduate students) from nearly 140 countries, and some 6,000 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.
King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.
King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.
King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit:
www.kingshealthpartners.org