"Digital humanities" covers a wide variety of ways in which scholars in the humanities ― literature, languages, history, music, art, religion and many other disciplines ― collect, curate, analyze and present information about their fields, using digital representations and technology. One of the appealing characteristics of computer science is how applicable it is across the whole spectrum of human activities. This talk will describe my experience leading a seminar for undergraduate computer science majors who are exploring digital humanities projects, hopefully along the way building tools and developing techniques that will help humanities scholars work more effectively with their data.

About the Speaker:

Professor Brian W. Kernighan, who earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from Princeton University, joined Princeton's Department of Computer Science in 2000. Before returning to Princeton, he worked for 30 years at the Computing Science Research Center of Bell Laboratories, where he was head of the Computing Structures Research Department from 1981 to 2000. Kernighan was a member of the editorial board for Software―Practice & Experience, 1990-2009, and has been the adviser for the Addison-Wesley series on Professional Computing since 1990. His research interests include software tools, application-oriented languages, programming methodology, user interfaces and technology education. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2002.