Personal profile
Biography
Before ANU I was Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, founding director of King's Digital Lab, and deputy director of King's eResearch. Prior to working at King's I worked as a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa/New Zealand, helping develop the UC CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquakes Digital Archive. My doctorate explored the history of ideas in late twentieth-century Aotearoa/New Zealand. I have also worked in the government and commercial IT sectors in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, as a technical writer, editor, business analyst, and project manager.
Research Interests
I am a historian of culture, ideas, and technology with expertise in Research Software Engineering (RSE). In my digital practice I apply computational tools and methods to arts, humanities, and social science subjects. This involves the development of products (like websites, electronic books, or mobile applications), the analysis of data (like text, image, and social media archives) and the provision of services (like digital libraries and archives) that can be used to explore subjects as varied as history, literature, philosophy, sociology, political science, and linguistics. This sort of work results in traditional scholarly articles and monographs as well as digital outputs. I am interested in any research that involves the innovative application of computational tools and methods to arts, humanities, and social science subjects, and often work in inter-disciplinary teams from across the campus. I have additional experience applying information management techniques to post-disaster contexts.
Research student supervision
- Registered to supervise
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities
Liu, A. (Editor), Pawlicka-Deger, U. (Editor) & Smithies, J. (Editor), 2026, University of Minnesota Press. (Debates in the Digital Humanities)Research output: Book/Report › Edited Book › peer-review
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Large Language Models and Transnational Research: Introducing the AI as Infrastructure (AIINFRA) Project
Smithies, J. & Taiuru, K., 2024.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review
Open Access -
Leveraging Scale and Opportunity: Digital HASS in Australasia
Smithies, J., 2024.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review
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The Kindle™ as Necker Cube
Smithies, J., Mar 2024, In: Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. 49, 2, p. 237-251Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Towards a National Data Architecture for Cultural Collections: Designing the Australian Cultural Data Engine
Fensham, R., Sumner, T. D., Cutter, N., Buchanan, G., Liu, R., Munoz, J., Smithies, J., Zheng, I., Carlin, D., Champion, E. & Craig, H., 20 Jul 2024, In: Digital Humanities Quarterly. 18, 2Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access
Projects
- 4 Active
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Australians and the Past Revisited
Smith, L. (PI), Ashton, P. (CoI), Dellios, A. (CoI), Evans, T. (CoI), Smithies, J. (CoI) & Trinca Talalin, M. (CoI)
24/03/26 → 24/03/29
Project: Research
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Social Science Research Infrastructure Network
Smithies, J. (PI), Tomaszewski, W. (PI), Tomaszewski, W. (PI) & Adeniran, A. (CoI)
31/01/25 → 30/06/28
Project: Research
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Research Software Engineering Capacity Enhancement Project (RSE-CEP)
Smithies, J. (PI)
14/07/23 → 30/06/28
Project: Research