About Data/Culture
Find out about the project and the team.
Building human-centred digital research infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities.
Data/Culture develops tools and communities to support sustainable digital research, connecting datasets, software, and researchers through a shared platform and collaborative activities. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, it forms part of the Infrastructure for Digital Arts and Humanities, advancing new approaches to curation and access to complex data. The project combines a discovery portal, skills-building events, and stakeholder engagement to strengthen digital infrastructure across the Arts and Humanities and GLAM.
Meet the team
Professor Pieter François
Principal Investigator
Professor Pieter François is Professor of Cultural Evolution at Oxford and Principal Investigator of Data/Culture. He is the Director of the Computational Humanities Lab at Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, and he leads the World History Lab at Oxford's School of Anthropology. At the Alan Turing Institute he is the lead of the Resilient Societies research group. He is the founding Director of the Seshat Global History Databank. His research integrates history, data science, and cultural evolution, focusing on long-term patterns of social complexity on the one hand and on sustainable research infrastructure in the humanities on the other.
Dr. Michelle Chew
Community and Project Manager
As a Community and Project Manager, Michelle is Community oversees operations, communications, and data management. She previously worked on the ERC-funded EMPTINESS project and has nearly 20 years’ experience across the University, including roles in Research Ethics, the Bodleian Library, and Young Lives (ODID). Formerly an editor, she also freelances as a copyeditor. She holds degrees from Claremont McKenna College and Oxford.
Dr. Giovanna Di Martino
Community and Project Manager
Alongside being a Community and Project Manager for Data/Culture at Oxford, Giovanna is also a Honorary Leventis Fellow at UCL (2024-2027), and Fellow at the Harvard's Centre for Hellenic Studies (2026-2027). She develops new forms of collaborative engagement between technical professionals, scholars, and datasets. She is also co-Principal Investigator of a BA/Leverhulme project on Greek drama in Strasbourg (1540–1609), where she combines theatre practice, digital humanities, and textual analysis. For more, see giovannadimartino.co.uk.
Dr. Matilda Peruzzo
Data Scientist
Matilda studied physics, doing her PhD in quantum computing. She now applies data science to historical research by analysing large scale historical trends. Her work develops methods for analysing large-scale historical data to understand long-term social patterns. In the Data/Culture project she is in charge of the web development of the Data/Culture portal.
Enrico Cioni
Research Assistant
Enrico Cioni is a Research Assistant with a background in archaeology and anthropology. He has contributed for over a decade to the Seshat Global History Databank, researching ritual and religion across past societies worldwide. His work supports large-scale, comparative approaches to global history.