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Faculty,
Researcher
Rafael Alvarado
Associate Professor of Data Science
School of Data Science
Email: rca2t@virginia.edu
Phone: (434) 982-1029
Additional Contact Information
Website: transducer.ontoligent.com/
Office: Elson, Room 187
Rafael Alvarado is an Associate Professor at the School of Data Science and former program director of the M.S. in Data Science residential program. His areas of research include digital humanities, text analytics, and the anthropology of information.
A digital humanist, Alvarado has a background in anthropology. He became interested in data science when he realized he could combine his interests in human culture and quantitative methods. Prior to coming back to UVA, Alvarado worked at Princeton University as a Coordinator of Humanities and Social Sciences Computing. There, he worked on several projects, including the Charrette Project, which digitized an Old French manuscript of an Arthurian legend, Chrétien de Troyes’ Knight of the Cart, which tells the story of Lancelot.
At the School of Data Science, Alvarado teaches courses on Exploratory Text Analytics and the Practice and Application of Data Science. He emphasizes the importance of ethics in data science to his students as they look to the future of data science.
Alvarado holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Virginia. He earned his M.A. and B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Virginia.
Education
- PH.D., Anthropology, University of Virginia
- M.A., Anthropology, University of Virginia
- B.A., Anthropology, University of Virginia
Selected Publications
Alvarado, R. C. (2012). The Digital Humanities Situation. In Debates in the Digital Humanities (bll 50–55). doi:10.5749/minnesota/9780816677948.003.0005
Alvarado, R., & Humphreys, P. (2017). Big data, thick mediation, and representational opacity. New literary history, 48(4), 729–749. doi:10.1353/nlh.2017.0037
Rule, W., Duan, W., Prakash, N., Zhuang, N., Alvarado, R. C., & Brown, D. E. (2018, April). Social pressure analysis of local events using social media data. 2018 Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS). Presented at the 2018 Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS), Charlottesville, VA. doi:10.1109/sieds.2018.8374751
Bigelow, A. M., & Alvarado, R. C. (2020). Digital Resources: Multepal, Mesoamerican Studies, and the Popol Wuj. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.799
Addington, C., Baptista, K. A., Alvarado, R. C., & Bigelow, A. M. (2020). Digital decolonizations. In Transformative Digital Humanities (bll 7–17). doi:10.4324/9780429399923-3
Alvarado, R. C., Barriente, A. I., & Bigelow, A. M. (2021). Popol wujs: Culture, complexity, and the encoding of Maya cosmovisión. Ethnohistory (Columbus, Ohio), 68(4), 493–518. doi:10.1215/00141801-9157219
Cruser, J., Haworth, A. C., Alonzi, L. P., & Alvarado, R. C. (2018, April). Quiet agent detection through simulation and classification. 2018 Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS). Presented at the 2018 Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS), Charlottesville, VA. doi:10.1109/sieds.2018.8374752
Ritzmann, C. (2013). Dame Philology’s Charrette. Digital Philology A Journal of Medieval Cultures, 2(2), 300–303. doi:10.1353/dph.2013.0017
Carrasco, D. (Red). (2001a). The oxford encyclopedia of Mesoamerican cultures. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195108156.001.0001
Carrasco, D. (Red). (2001b). The oxford encyclopedia of Mesoamerican cultures. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195108156.001.0001