A symposium co-organized by Brown University Digital Publications and the Center for Digital Scholarship on Friday, May 1, 2026.
This one-day symposium, held both in-person and virtually, focuses on future directions in the field of digital scholarship, including community-engaged research, uses of AI in the field, the rapidly evolving landscape of multimodal publishing, and more.
Keynote speaker: Brett Bobley, advisor for Schmidt Sciences’ Humanities and AI Virtual Institute grant program and former founding director of the NEH Office of Digital Humanities.
Registration
Free and open to the public. Registration required.
Schedule
8:30 a.m. – Arrivals
8:45 a.m. – Welcome and Introduction
9:15 a.m. – Keynote Address
Brett Bobley, Advisor for Schmidt Sciences and former Director of the Office of Digital Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities
10:15 a.m. – Break
10:30 a.m. – Multimodal Publishing: Innovation and Impact
Participants
- Sarah McKee, Project Manager, Amplifying Humanistic Scholarship, American Council of Learned Societies
- Tara Nummedal, Professor and Chair of History, Brown University
- Leah VanWey, Dean of the Faculty, Brown University
- Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero, Director of the University of Guam Press
- Chair: Allison Levy, Director of Brown University Digital Publications
12 p.m. – Lunch
1 p.m. – Community-Centered Research I: Our Priorities and Concerns (Case Studies)
Participants
- Kim Gallon, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, Brown University
- Kimberley Toney, Coordinating Curator for Native American and Indigenous Materials for the John Carter Brown Library and Brown University Library
- Michael Running Wolf (Northern Cheyenne and Lakota), Co-Founder and Lead Architect of First Languages AI Reality at Mila/IndigiGenius and former AI startup executive
- Co-Chairs:
- Patrick Rashleigh, Head of Digital Scholarship Technology Services, Brown University Library
- Tarika Sankar, Digital Humanities Librarian, Brown University Library
2 p.m. – Break
2:15 p.m. – Community-Centered Research II: Your Priorities and Concerns (audience breakouts)
3:15 p.m. – Break
3:25 p.m. – Future Directions for Digital Scholarship
- Eliza Bettinger, Director of Digital Scholarship Services, Cornell University Library
- Meaghan J. Brown, Associate Director of Digital Asset Management, John Carter Brown Library
- Lynda Kellam, Snyder-Granader Director of Research Data & Digital Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania Libraries
- Nirmala Menon, Professor of English, Indian Institute of Technology Indore and Chair of the newly established Jay Prakash Narayan National Centre of Excellence in the Humanities
- Cecilia Smith, Director of Digital Scholarship, University of Chicago Library
- Co-Chairs:
- Ashley Champagne, Director of Center for Digital Scholarship, Brown University Library
- Allison Levy, Director of Brown University Digital Publications, Brown University Library
4:45 p.m. – Closing Remarks
- Ashley Champagne, Director of Center for Digital Scholarship, Brown University Library
- Allison Levy, Director of Brown University Digital Publications, Brown University Library