For graduates
Interested in archives, memory, or historical preservation? Work with a collection you’d like to help protect, or share with new audiences? Get in touch! We’re always looking for opportunities to collaborate.
For undergraduates
AMPL is always looking for interested and motivated undergraduates to join the team. Undergraduates have the opportunity to be involved in all aspects of our research, including archival digitization and description, the development and testing of tools and methods, the production of public-facing narratives to bring historical research to broad audiences, and even helping formulate new research questions.
Undergrad research assistants are expected to work for approximately 3-6 hours per week in the lab (or remotely, depending on the project), which includes attending a weekly lab meeting. Research assistants can receive course credit. Given the amount of training involved, for some projects we require a two-quarter commitment. We hope research assistants will want to participate even longer, and start their own independent projects!
Details of individual roles we are looking for are detailed below, as well as on the URCA Undergraduate Research Directory.
Cataloging Historical Materials from colonial Tunja, Colombia
Want to learn to read and describe 16th and 17th-century manuscripts from Latin America? We are currently reviewing thousands of images of archival materials from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries held in the city of Tunja, in the central highlands of Colombia. This material was produced by scribes and notaries on behalf of broad sectors of the very diverse population of this region, who went to them to record everything from contracts and business deals to wedding arrangements and wills, and provides a fascinating window into everyday life in a colonial Latin American city. However, In order to publish them and make them available to researchers we need to go through them and describe the documents, creating catalogs and finding aids. This is where we need your help! Learn more about the position in the URCA Directory (UCSB login required), and about the broader project here.
Creating a digital archive of social justice movements in Medellín, Colombia
Want to learn to digitize and describe historical photographs? We are working on a project that explores memory, urban migration, and political struggles in Medellín (Colombia). We are currently digitizing and reviewing hundreds of photographs that document the lives of the inhabitants of a key neighborhood, “Barrio Fidel Castro” (Moravia) in the 1970s. These images provide an intimate look at everyday life and political organizing there. Learn more about the position in the URCA Directory (UCSB login required), and about the broader project here.
Refining and analyzing a historical dataset of people in rural Peru
Want to learn to apply your programming, data science, and machine learning knowledge to humanities research? We are working on a project to produce a functional historical dataset of individuals on the basis of some 10,000 parish records (of births, marriages, and deaths) from the Sondondo Valley in Southern Peru. These documents were produced from the 16th to the 20th century by the Catholic church, the Spanish colonial state, the Peruvian state after independence, and local peasant communities, so that we can make the data available and useful to local communities and researchers. Learn more about the position in the URCA Directory (UCSB login required), and about the broader project here.