Hi, I’m Melanie Walsh, and I’m an Assistant Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. Before joining the faculty at UW, I was a Postdoctoral Associate in Information Science at Cornell University, where I worked with David Mimno. Before that, I received my PhD in English & American Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, where I was a Fellow in the Humanities Digital Workshop. My research interests include data science, digital humanities, cultural analytics, LIS, social media, and American literature & culture—preferably all of the above combined.

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.

Additionally, I am co-editor of the Post45 Data Collective — a peer-reviewed, open-source repository for literary and cultural data after 1945. I am also co-PI of the AI for Humanists project (formerly the BERT for Humanists project), which makes recent advances in artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT, GPT-3, and BERT, accessible to scholars in the humanities.

News

September 2023 I started a new position as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington.
January 2023 We were awarded a Level III NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant for our AI for Humanists Project.
October 2022 I was interviewed by Australian radio ABC about my essay, “Where Is All The Book Data?”
October 2022 I published an essay on proprietary book data and open source alternatives, called “Where Is All the Book Data?”, in Public Books
June 2022 I became co-editor of the Post45 Data Collective with Dan Sinykin
January 2022 My online textbook, Introduction to Cultural Analytics & Python, was voted the “Best Digital Humanities Training Material” of 2021