Digital Humanities Research Assistant

Case Western Reserve University: STUDENT EMPLOYMENT: UGEN (STUDENT) Location Baker-Nord Institute for the Humanities and Kelvin Smith Library Open Date Aug 20, 2026 Description The Baker Nord Institute for the Humanities, Dr. Ben Vinson III (historian), and Mr. David Beales from the Freedman Digital Scholarship Center are hiring students with strong techn ology skills to develop and deploy a transformer-based OCR and text analysis pipeline, called BEN4. The SOMOS project applies open source AI tools to make specific repositories within the Mexican National Archives machine readable. The project then analyzes the machine readable text with cutting-edge, best practices in text analysis. Students will be hired as Class III student employees. Starting pay will be $14.52-$15.40/hr The goal is to create a unique, adaptable, and highly effective digital/AI tool that can be used by humanists for any collection of interest. Accordingly, the project uses a modular design that allows different small models with context relevant training to be plugged into the pipeline as needs change. The SOMOS project will offer opportunities to collaborate with partners in other institutions as we test models and work towards deploying the SOMOS-BEN4 pipeline in support of other collections. Qualifications We are looking for members to constitute the SOMOS team who have interest or expertise in some or all of the following areas: Deploying open source AI/ML models using Ollama and Python Optimizing systems for local hardware and cloud deployments Evaluation and fine-tuning of LLMs Computer vision, TrOCR, HTR and Image Preparation GraphRAG, Topic Modelling, Named Entity Recognition and other text analysis methods Web stack and UX/UI Given the wide variety of experimental technological resources used in this project, an exceptional capacity for self-directed learning with technology is paramount. Additionally, given that the historical collections we are working with are in Spanish, we are also looking for students who have intermediate to advanced reading knowledge of Spanish and demonstrate a willingness to learn colonial Spanish. It is not necessary, however, for students to have both the technological expertise and Spanish language skills. Case Western Reserve University is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants are protected under federal and state laws and university policy from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national or ethnic origin, protected veteran status, disability, age and genetic information. Reasonable Accommodation Statement: Case Western Reserve University complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process should contact the Office of Equity by phone at View phone number on click.appcast.io or by email View email address on click.appcast.io . Determinations as to granting reasonable accommodations for any applicant will be made on a case-by-case basis. #J-18808-Ljbffr Case