Dr Marco Humbel

About

Marco has over 15 years of experience in working, researching and teaching at the intersection of information and data science, cultural heritage and the Digital Humanities. His interdisciplinary background is reflected in his role as an Archival Data Analyst at The National Archives, where he is responsible for analysing and transforming complex textual data sets according to archivists’ needs.

As a researcher and educator Marco is interested in the histories and implications of computation in the cultural heritage sector, such as in the context of Collections as Data frameworks, Artificial Intelligence (e.g. Automated Text Recognition) and Digital Infrastructures.

Research activity

Before joining The National Archives Marco worked as a Research Associate for the DFG-AHRC funded Mixed Methods Digital Oral History Project, where he was leading on text mining born digital source material, FAIR data creation and dissemination and devising research ethics and data protection protocols. In addition, he served from 2023 to 2025 in a voluntary position as an Associate Director of the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, for which he organised workshops on Digital Humanities methods, seminars and lectures.

From 2021-2024 Marco worked for the AHRC funded Sloane Lab project where he collaborated with colleagues from the British Museum, Natural History Museum and UCL to devise research instruments for consulting UK and international players on Collections as Data infrastructure development. In this role he also developed a Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) Model for early modern handwriting, available on HTR-United.

Marco holds a PhD in Information Studies from UCL London. His thesis offers a critical intervention in Open Access and Collections as Data frameworks through the microcosm of Social Movement Archives and highlights the relevance of Social Movement Archives as sites for questioning and reflecting on archival theory and praxis.