Melanie Walsh is always looking for ways to expand on research and develop stronger connections with students.
“Students often approach me and want to see if they can get involved with my research,” Walsh said. “I really want to work with undergraduate students, but I often don't have time or I don't have money to support them.”
The (HDSSI) gives Walsh and other faculty an opportunity to work with more students, diving further into their research and developing meaningful relationships. The five-week program, which takes place in June and July, was co-founded by Walsh, an iSchool assistant professor, to support data-focused research projects in the humanities.
The HDSSI is a collaboration between the , the and the . The HDSSI is open to undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty and staff. It has supported more than 60 participants since 2023 in research that involves both data and humanistic approaches.
Walsh and co-founder Anna Preus, assistant professor for the English Department, were drawn to creating the program after they both participated in a similar summer fellowship program during graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis.
“We both thought that program was amazing and it basically kind of launched our whole digital humanities careers,” Walsh said. “So we wanted to bring something like that to UW and make it even better.”
With students coming from both humanities and data science backgrounds, Walsh enjoys introducing students to the world of digital humanities: the ambiguity and nuance of humanities and the scale and problem solving of data and coding.
“It's the most intimate teaching research environment that I've been able to have,” she said.
The program is also supported by campus data scientists and experts, with eScience’s Naomi Alterman providing ongoing technical guidance to teams. Students spend the first week of the institute attending workshops and tutorials, such as an introduction to Python workshop for students who may not have a data science background. A librarian and data visualization expert, Negeen Aghassibake, also helped bring students from all backgrounds to a similar starting point.
A requirement of participation in HDSSI is presenting at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, which takes place in spring quarter. The goal of presenting is for students to learn how to conduct real research, present their findings, write a report and have a larger real-world impact than a typical end-of-quarter assignment.
Walsh’s students from the 2024 HDSSI presented "Tweets of a Native Son: James Baldwin in the Digital Age” at the 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium. Working largely with X data, the project tracks the use of references and quotations from famous American authors on social media platforms.
This year's project was a continuation from last summer, “?” Using data from Seattle Public Library, the team—which included four undergraduate students and a graduate RA, Neel Gupta, an iSchool PhD student—tracked checkout trends from the past 20 years of books from more than 90 authors.
The Seattle Public Library is uncommon if not unique in that it keeps a detailed 20-year log of checkout data, according to Walsh. Prior to joining the Information School, she was fascinated by SPL’s detailed logging. Through this summer project, Walsh and her students created a catalog that allows them to demonstrate how readers can use the data and connect them to their favorite authors.
“I just want people to be able to really understand how cool this data is. And it's kind of hard to understand without getting to search for an author you know or a text that you know,” she said. “We wanted people to be able to see those insights for the authors and texts that they are interested in specifically.”
Other projects at this year’s HDSSI were also a continuation of research from previous years. There was a project about Black cinemas in the U.S. and how they have changed historically over time, a project on 20th century publishing history and one on Pepe the Frog memes from an art history perspective.
For students and faculty interested in participating in HDSSI 2026, pending continued funding, applications will open in late February or early March 2026.
Pictured at top: Melanie Walsh speaks to students at HDSSI 2025. (Photo by Katie Rich)