Isaac Pante will serve as University of Lausanne (UNIL) Academic Director of the dhCenter starting in January, 2021.
Currently a senior lecturer in UNIL’s Department of Language and Information Sciences (SLI), and Scientific Advisor on Digital Transition for the UNIL Rectorate, Pante will also become the SLI’s new department head in January.
Pante takes over the center’s UNIL Academic Director position from fellow dhCenter member and SLI professor Michael Piotrowski. Together with EPFL Academic Director Karl Aberer, Piotrowski has guided the initial development of the dhCenter since its founding in 2018.
“It’s important to realize that the digital humanities are neither primarily about computer scientists applying their tools to the humanities and social sciences, nor about humanities scholars and social scientists observing the development of technology or giving engineers ethical advice,” Piotrowski says. Rather, he emphasizes that the field of digital humanities is “emerging through the encounter of computer scientists, humanities scholars, and social scientists interested in a common methodology to tackle old and new research challenges. And this is exactly what the dhCenter is about.”