ITSEE is delighted to announce that Professor Aengus Ward has been appointed as Co-Director from the beginning of the 2019-20 academic year. Aengus has been on the staff in Birmingham for over two decades, and was honoured this summer with a personal chair in Medieval Iberian Studies. He has been a member of ITSEE for several years, and was Principal Investigator of the recent AHRC-funded Estoria de Espanna digital edition. He is currently leading an international crowd-sourcing project, the first of its kind in Spanish manuscripts, as well as the University’s partnership in digital textual editing with Trinity College Dublin. Aengus also directs the final-year undergraduate module on “The Digital Past”, which trains students to use digital tools to work with medieval manuscripts.
Professor Hugh Houghton, Director of ITSEE, said:
“I am very pleased indeed that Aengus has agreed to serve as co-director of ITSEE. His interests and expertise make him uniquely qualified to share in planning the future direction of this institute as well as continuing to develop and lead innovative research projects. Aengus has already played an important part in extending ITSEE’s involvement across the College of Arts and Law, as was originally envisaged when the Institute was set up, and I am grateful to the School of Languages, Culture, Art History and Music for enabling Aengus to take on this new responsibility.”
All three of ITSEE’s management team undertook their doctoral studies at the University of Birmingham, and continue to promote this distinctive area of expertise: this year ITSEE will be home to eleven doctoral students working on historical texts and electronic editions.