Team
Our team consists of Prof. Dr. Vahram Atayan (Director), Dr. Nele Schneidereit (Scientific Director), Dr. Florian Nieser (Scientific Lead), David Schatz (student assistant), Jonathan Gaede (research associate), and Sophia Rüeck (student assistant). With backgrounds in literary studies and digital humanities, game studies, numismatics, and classical archaeology, we recognize the ever-growing importance of digital methods in the humanities—as well as the associated dynamics—through our work advising and engaging with a wide range of research projects, researchers, and students.
Through a combination of interdisciplinary collaborators, innovative research ideas, and strong service partners, we are working to be an active and productive part of this dynamic.
Prof. Dr. Vahram Atayan (Director)
Prof. Dr. Vahram Atayan is head of the French Department at the Institute for Translation and Interpreting (IUED) and the executive director of the HCDH. His areas of expertise include applied linguistics, translation and interpreting, digital and computational humanities. He is a head and member of the INF subproject “Heim(d)aten: Research Infrastructure and Multilingual Modeling” within the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center 1671 “Heimat(en): Phenomena, Practices, Representations.”
Dr. Nele Schneidereit (Scientific Management)
Dr. Nele Schneidereit, the scientific director of the Research Council’s Field of Focus 3, assumes the role of managing director of the HCDH.
Dr. Florian Nieser (Scientific Lead)
Florian Nieser will serve as the scientific lead of the HCDH. He is currently conducting research in the field of Critical AI Engineering and is focusing on application-based uses of LLMs.
Further Informationen
David Schatz
David Schatz is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computational linguistics (75%) and psychology (25%). On the side, he works as a student assistant in programming, data-driven research, and data engineering in the humanities, and his research focuses on the identification and analysis of cultural patterns using large language models (LLMs).
Jonathan Gaede
Jonathan Gaede studied German language and literature and digital humanities at JMU Würzburg and, as a research assistant, supports the HCDH in designing and conducting workshops on DH topics and in communicating with the research community. His interdisciplinary dissertation project examines the role of astrological-alchemical secret symbols and “special characters” in early modern scholarly literature. He is part of the ALMA-project within the HCDH's collaboration with the Academy of Sciences Heidelberg.
Sophia Rüeck
Sophia Rüeck is a research assistant at the HCDH, working in the areas of public relations and science communication. She earned her B.A. in English and Romance Languages from Heidelberg University and is currently pursuing her M.A. in Education.