Jeffrey R. Tharsen 康森傑

Associate Director of Technology

5720 South Woodlawn Avenue, Room 105

Jeffrey Tharsen holds a doctorate in East Asian philology, poetics, phonology, and paleography from the University of Chicago. He has expertise in computational methods for philological and linguistic research and for data analysis and visualization. His decades-long engagement with computing has given him extensive experience in creating digital resources, platforms, and methods for all kinds of humanities research.

Jeff provides consultation and training for the use of the OCHRE platform by faculty and students in all stages of their projects, from the initial acquisition of digital data to its final publication and archiving. He teaches two Digital Studies courses per year: “Digital Texts II: Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning” (Spring) and “Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities” (Spring). He also advises M.A. thesis projects and mentors students in developing new digital tools and resources.

Jeff regularly presents his own research at national and international conferences and serves on committees devoted to developing advanced technologies for the humanities. During his graduate studies, he received a Fulbright award for his Digital Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, a new type of software suite which facilitates large-scale analyses of early Chinese phonetic patterning and phonorhetoric; his first monograph, Chinese Euphonics, is to be published as part of the DeGruyter Worlds of East Asia series in 2023.