In recognition of his invaluable contributions to NYU’s digital humanities program, we would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Ben Schmidt, who left NYU to become Vice President of Information Design at Nomic. Ben joined NYU in 2019 as Director of Digital Humanities, and played a pivotal role in establishing both the Digital Humanities Seed Grant and Graduate Student Fellowship programs as well as revitalizing the Advanced Certificate in Digital Humanities (DH) graduate program.
Under Ben’s leadership, the Seed Grants program has funded 15 faculty projects, from which over $700,000 in external grants have already been brought to the university. These projects span many of the most important areas of DH work, including analysis of the visualization and quantification of African Americans, the creation of linked open data, critical and computational analysis of artificial intelligence, development of strategies for decolonizing digital design, disability studies, and computational analysis of large textual collections.
Ben also steered the creation of the DH Graduate Fellows program, a funded summer fellowship that has opened diverse career opportunities for graduate students by providing a cohort experience with expert mentorship that helps students build their skills in project-based environments and equips them to bring those skills back to their home disciplines. The Graduate Fellows program has supported 18 students to date, and both it and the Seed Grants program will continue to thrive thanks to Ben’s dedication.
We also wish to celebrate Kimon Keramidas, faculty in the Experimental Humanities program, who has taken a position as the Head of Digital Content and Strategy at the Rubin Museum. Kimon has been a force for DH at NYU since arriving in 2015, creating the foundation that has allowed the program to grow. Many of Kimon’s courses, including Digital Humanities: Collections and Connections and Digital Humanities: Analysis and Visualization have formed the backbone of the Advanced Certificate program. And many others, such as American Hardcore Punk and Queering the Web, have brought a welcome mix of playful yet critical pedagogy to digital media studies.
Ever the eager collaborator, Kimon’s students and the university writ large were fortunate to benefit from his partnerships. Standouts include his work with the Smithsonian Institute for its exhibition, The Sogdians: Influencers on the Silk Roads, as well as his frequent collaborator with NYU Abu Dhabi. And last but not least, everyone in the New York City DH community has benefitted from Kimon’s tireless efforts as an NYCDH Steering Committee member. He is the driving force behind the ever-popular DH Week, which has brought a wealth of community and skill building opportunities to the metro area each February since 2016.
A warm thanks to Ben and Kimon for lending their vision and dedication, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, being exemplars of publicly-oriented scholarship. We wish them both the best in their next adventures!