

Hi, Iâm Melanie Walsh. Iâm an Assistant Professor in the Information School and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Washington. Iâm also on the Executive Council for the new Center for Advances in Libraries, Archives, and Museums (CALMA).
Before UW, I was a Postdoctoral Associate in Information Science at Cornell University, where I worked with David Mimno. I received my PhD in English Literature from Washington University in St. Louis.
My research interests include data science, digital humanities/cultural analytics, literature, libraries, and social mediaâpreferably all of the above combined. I investigate how data and computational methods shape contemporary culture â such as the publishing industry and public libraries â and how they can be used to understand culture in turn. You can download my full CV here.
I am currently at work on a book project, When Postwar American Fiction Went Viral: Protest, Profit, and Popular Readers in the 21st Century, which follows the social media afterlives of American authors.
I also designed and released a free, open-source textbook, Introduction to Cultural Analytics & Python, which introduces the programming language Python to people interested in the humanities and social science.
With wonderful collaborators, I also lead several projects that Iâm proud of:
In my free time, I like to play basketball đ, hike â°ď¸, and paddle board among seal friends đŚ (like in Shilshole Bay pictured above!).
I am recruiting one student to join my group in 2025-2026. For more info, see âMentorshipâ.
news
Apr 10, 2025 | I will be giving a talk at the Data Science/Computational Social Science (DS/CSS) Seminar at the University of Michigan. |
---|---|
Mar 14, 2025 | I gave a talk about our project âResponsible Datasets in Contextâ at the âWorking with Data for Social Changeâ symposium at CU Boulder, hosted by the Data Advocacy for All project. |
Jan 19, 2025 | I am giving a keynote talk at the Hong Kong Association for Digital Humanitiesâ (HKADH) inaugural conference in Hong Kong. |
Jan 10, 2025 | I am presenting on a panel at MLA for our âResponsible Datasets in Contextâ project in New Orleans. |
Dec 10, 2024 | I gave a talk at the CNRS AI for Science, Science for AI (ASSAI) Digital Humanities and AI Final Conference in Paris, France. |
selected publications
- Does ChatGPT Have a Poetic Style?In Computational Humanities Research (CHR), Dec 2024arXiv:2410.15299
- Sonnet or Not, Bot? Poetry Evaluation for Large Models and DatasetsIn Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP, Nov 2024
- The Challenges and Possibilities of Social Media Data: New Directions in Literary Studies and the Digital HumanitiesNov 2023publisher: U of Minnesota Press
- Where is all the book data?Public Books, Nov 2022đď¸I spoke about this essay with Australian radio ABC.đď¸
- The Goodreads âClassicsâ: A Computational Study of Readers, Amazon, and Crowdsourced Amateur CriticismPost45 and Journal of Cultural Analytics, Nov 2021