On July 31, the Center for Public History, UH Libraries and the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Science Institute hosted the 2024 Student Data Showcase in Digital Humanities and Engaged Data Science in the Rockwell Pavilion at the M.D. Anderson Library. Now in its second year, the event expanded its initial focus on public history to encompass a broader scope of research.
Thirty students from the Summer Internship in Public History and Digital Humanities (SIPHDH) and the Pharis Fellowship Program presented projects that explore the intersection of digital methods and human experience. Pharis Fellows developed projects investigating how individual health outcomes are embedded in socioenvironmental contexts, collaborating with partners such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Humana Insurance and the UH Education Research Center. SIPHDH interns engaged in projects that merge the humanities and STEM, supplementing traditional humanities skills with modern technologies and digital methodologies to reach new audiences. Both groups reflected on how their summer work shaped their understanding of effective communication, social responsibility and the ethical use of data in their respective fields.
This showcase is part of a growing community of practice fostered by the UH Digital Humanities Core Facility, designed to cultivate collaboration between faculty and students on interdisciplinary research teams. Faculty benefit from a phased approach that encourages early student engagement, while students gain agency over project outcomes and valuable experience in new and emerging research areas.
2024 SIPHDH Projects
SYRIOS
Dr. Kristina Neumann (History, CLASS), Dr. Peggy Lindner (Information and Logistics Technology, Engineering), and Dr. Liz Rodwell (Information and Logistics Technology, Engineering)
The SYRIOS (Studying Urban Relationships and Identity Over Ancient Syria) project explores Syrian history through the intersection of historical data, user experience research and web technology.
Sharing Stories from 1977
Directors: Dr. Leandra Zarnow (History, CLASS), Dr. Nancy Beck Young (History, CLASS), Dr. Peggy Lindner (Information and Logistics Technology, Engineering), and Dr. Liz Rodwell (Information and Logistics Technology, Engineering)
This archive-building project documents the lives of over 150,000 participants of the 1977 National Women's Conference through biographies, oral histories, historical ephemera, demographic mapping and interpretive essays.
Houston History Magazine
Directors: Dr. Debbie Harwell (History, CLASS)
This magazine project has been published by the UH Center for Public History since 2003 and engages the local community by preserving Houston's history, producing weekly articles and two print issues yearly.
Morales Family Collection
Directors: Dr. Gabriela Baeza Ventura (Hispanic Studies, CLASS), Dr. Carolina Villarroel (USLDH), Dr. Lorena Gauthereau (USLDH), and Mikaela Selley (USLDH)
The Morales Family Collection preserves death records of Latinos from Juan Crow segregation, allowing the Morales family to highlight the health and social conditions affecting Latinos in Houston disproportionately.
Mapping Multicultural Houston
Directors: Dr. Melody Yunzi LI (Modern and Classical Languages, CLASS) and Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel (History, CLASS)
This archival project curates a digital spatial map detailing the history and experiences of Houston's Chinese communities through census data, immigration records and personal narratives.
1771 Project
Directors: Dr. David Mazella (English, CLASS)
The 1771 Project explores the literary and cultural history of 1771 across the British empire using a dataset from the English Short Title Catalogue which includes works by authors and printers categorized by genre, gender and city.