address
  • 20 Cooper Square, Room 538
  • New York University
  • New York, NY 10003
appointment
  • New York University
  • Northeastern University
  • Harvard University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
education
  • Ph.D. in HistoryNovember 2013Princeton University
  • M.A. in HistoryJune 2007Princeton University
  • A.B. in Social Studies, magna cum laudeJune 2003Harvard University
publication
  • Uncontrolled corpus composition drives an apparent surge in cognitive distortions. Benjamin Schmidt, Steven T. Piantadosi, Kyle Mahowald. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2021, 118 (45) e2115010118; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115010118.2021-11
  • Giving shape to large digital libraries through exploratory data analysis.2021-09
  • Creating Data: The Origins of Digitization in the American State, 1840-1940Digital Monograph, in progress
  • Examining patterns of text reuse in digitized text collectionsSun Jun 02 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
  • Are College Students Killing Townies?Thu Dec 17 2020 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
  • The History Major since the Great Recession2018 December
  • Stable Random Projection: Lightweight, General-Purpose Dimensionality Reduction for Digitized LibrariesSun Sep 30 2018 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
  • Modeling Time,(Routledge, 2018)
  • Do Digital Humanists Need to Understand Algorithms?2016University of Minnesota Press
  • Plot Arceology: A Vector Space Model of Plot2015
  • Words Alone: Dismantling Topic Models in the HumanitiesApril 2013
  • Theory FirstApril 2012
  • Sapping AttentionNovember 2010-Present
  • Bookworm2011-Present
  • Ranking Doctoral Programs by Placement: A New MethodJuly 2007
  • Is It Fair to Rate Professors Online?, The New York Times (Room for debate)December 16, 2015
  • The Humanities are in CrisisAugust 23, 2018
  • The Language of the State of the UnionJanuary 18, 2015
  • Mapping the State of the UnionJanuary 18, 2015
  • The data shows there's no real crisisNovember 4, 2013
  • The Language of LincolnJanuary 10, 2013
  • The Foreign Language of Mad MenMarch 22, 2012
  • Prochronisms2012-2015
grants
  • Asylum Lab, NYU Center for the Humanities
  • Similarity and Duplication in Digital Libraries. IMLS grant. Co-PI; Peter Organisciak, University of Denver.
  • NEH-Mellon Fellowships for Digital Publication for *Creating Data*, Calendar Year 2018. $50,400.
  • Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs: Visiting Fellow, Spring 2017
  • Proteus Project, development grant from Mellon Foundation. Join with University of Massachusetts. Northeastern co-director (with David Smith, Ryan Cordell, and Elizabeth Dillon). 2015-2016.
  • Bookworm Project, $350,000 implementation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2014-2016). Joint with University of Illinois and Rice University; Northeastern University project lead.
  • Bookworm Project, $50,000 continuation grant from the Digital Public Library of America (2013). Project developer and grant-writer. 2013.
invited_talk
  • The Humanities in the Age of STEMMarch 13, 2020 (Cancelled due to COVID-19)
  • Data in search of an argumentJanuary 14, 2020Columbia University, New York
  • Reordering the digital library: what do 21st century algorithms make out of 19th century collectionsJanuary 28, 2018Chapel Hill
  • Visualizing and classifying large digital librariesJuly 29, 2016New York City
  • Data Visualization for the HumanitiesJune 7, 2016Grinnell College
  • Historical Data VisualizationNovember 12, 2015Emory University
  • Plot ArceologyMay 11, 2015Stanford University
  • Reconstructing the MapMay 10, 2015Stanford University
  • Aggregate Americans: The US Census Bureau, data visualization, 1880-1940February 26, 2015Washington University in St Louis
  • Applying a grammar of visualization to millions of texts: the Bookworm projectNovember 12, 2014Northeastern University
  • Bookworm: Exploring Massive Textual Collections through MetadataMay 12, 2014Yale University
  • Data-Driven Histories: Reinterpreting Nineteenth-Century DataApril 22, 2014University of Georgia
  • Data narratives and group dynamics in digital history: a case study in ships' logsApril 11, 2014University of Nebraska, Lincoln
  • History for the Digital Future: Digital Forms of Historical ScholarshipJanuary 31, 2014University of Michigan
  • 'Big Data' across Disciplines, from Cultural Studies to CulturomicsMarch 27, 2013Sociology Department, Harvard University
  • Unintended Consequences: Digital Reading and the Loci of Cultural ChangeMarch 12, 2013London, UK
  • Digital ReadingJanuary 31, 2013Rutgers University
  • Humanities Research with Digital LibrariesApril 16, 2012New York City
  • A History of AttentionMarch 17, 2012New York City
  • BookwormOctober 21, 2011Washington, DC
home_institution
  • The DH/CSS job market. Panelist.October 13, 2016
  • What gender's got to do with teaching evaluations.November 4, 2015Conflict. Civility. Respect. Peace. Northeastern Reflects series on civic sustainability.
  • Open Access in the Digital HumanitiesOctober 22, 2013
conference
  • Two Volumes: the Lessons of Time on the CrossJanuary 2019Chicago
  • What will the liberal arts look like in 10 years?November 29, 2018New York City
  • Stable Random Projection: Universal, Minimal Dimensionality Reduction for BooksAugust 2017Montreal
  • Drawing the frontier line at the US Census, 1870-1920April 8, 2017New York
  • A public exploratory data analysis of gender bias in teaching evaluationsOctober 24, 2016Baltimore
  • Invited presentationOctober 14, 2016National Academy of Sciences, Cambridge MA
  • Exploratory NarrativesOctober 1, 2016University of Miami
  • Data Revisualization as Critical Humanities Practice: Reinterpreting 19th Century Data with Modern ToolsJuly 1, 2015Sydney, Australia
  • Historical data revisualization: Turner, Walker, and envisioning the frontierJanuary 3, 2015Annual Meeting of the American History Association
  • Bookworm: Building an expressive grammar of humanities text analysisOctober 7, 2014Dartmouth College
  • Why we worry about humanities enrollmentsMarch 2014National Conference on Public History; Monterey, California
  • Transforming Texts into Cartesian SpacesDecember 2013Northeastern University
  • Reading texts with Big Metadata: the Bookworm platform for digital books, newspapers, and other librariesMarch 19, 2013Northeastern University
  • Reading Genres: Exploring Massive Digital Collections From the Top DownSeptember 22, 2012University of Kansas
  • Paying Attention: A Case Study in Conceptual History with Millions of TextsAugust 24, 2012Helsinki, Finland
  • Drifting Metaphors: Using Digital Libraries to Describe Discursive ChangeMay 24, 2012San Francisco
  • Digital Collections and Research LibrariesMarch 30, 2012Worcester, Massachusetts
  • A Conversation about Text Mining as a Research MethodJanuary 8, 2012Chicago
  • Practicing Intellectual History on the Digital ArchiveMarch 2011Princeton University
  • The Rise of the American Attention Span, 1890-1935March 2010Princeton University
workshop
  • Text Mining the Digital Library with Hathi Trust Extended FeaturesJanuary, 2020NYC Week of DH
  • Thinking Through Word Embeddings for the HumanitiesJune, 2018Carnegie Mellon University
  • Thinking Through Word Embeddings for the HumanitiesJanuary, 2018NYC Week of DH
  • Classification and the LibraryApril 19, 2016Columbia University
  • Text Analytics for Medical History (Instructor, NEH/NIH workshop)April 11, 2016Bethesda, MD
  • An Introduction to Text Analysis for HistoriansJanuary 2, 2015New York
  • Global Literary Networks Work RetreatDecember 4-5, 2014University of Chicago
  • Doing Digital History: A Graduate Student WorkshopApril 21, 2014University of Georgia
  • Digital Methods for conceptual historyAugust 2012Helsinki University
teaching
  • Introduction to ProgrammingFall 2020
  • The History of Big DataSpring 2020
  • Working with DataSpring 2020, Spring 2021
  • Asylum in Crisis. Co-taught with Sibylle Fischer and Ellen NoonanSpring 2021
  • Bostonography: Exploring the city through texts, maps, and networks. Co-taught with Ryan CordellFall 2016
  • United States History from 1607 to the presentSpring 2019; Fall 2017
  • Texts, Maps, and Networks: Readings and Methods for Digital HistoryFall 2015; Fall 2016; Fall 2017
  • Humanities Data AnalysisSpring 2019; Spring 2015
  • The Making of Modern America: The United States, 1877-1945Fall 2014
  • The History of Big DataFall 2013, Fall 2014
  • History in the Digital AgeSpring 2014
  • Introduction to Digital HistoryFall 2013
public_history
media_coverage
  • Is the Professor Bossy or Brilliant? Much Depends on GenderFebruary 6, 2015
  • When F-Bombs Went Mainstream, Who Talks about Terrorism, and Other Surprising Cultural Insights from Big DataSeptember 18, 2014
  • Nobody Said That Then!February 25, 2014
  • Quants Ask: What Crisis in the Humanities?June 27, 2013
service
competencies