In my work as a research assistant for a historical data project, I transcribed public records that contained the names of enslaved people enlisted in the Union Army, their enslavers, how much money their enslavers were supposed to receive for…

This summer, I had the opportunity to deepen my understanding of data as a research assistant under Dr. Amanda Kleintop, working with archived records from the US Slave Claims Commissions. In this role, I was responsible for transcribing documents from…

During the summer of 2025, I had the opportunity to work on a transcription project involving historical records from the War Department about Maryland, Missouri, and the US Bureau of Colored Troops during the Civil War. These included an account…

As the new school year begins and our weeks are filled with slide edits, planning meetings, and the smell of new notebooks, one theme is dominating the preparation: Artificial Intelligence. I am not an AI expert. I have no tips…

In this post and a series of student contributions that follow, we describe a summer project where we engaged with students doing transcription work of historical archival documents. While the original conception of the project started off as purely oriented…

When I, along with my CEL Scholar colleague Dr. Cora Wigger, describe our CEL project about data literacy and data justice to colleagues, we’re confronted with the same problem: every academic in every discipline defines “data” differently. As a historian…

“It’s not ethical to use a dataset without spending time getting a very good understanding of what the data means.”  Heather Kraus When I started teaching an applied statistics class for undergraduates, I resolved to give my students as much…

Over my career as a student and professor, I (Amanda) have come to learn, with the help of my colleague Dr. Cora Wigger that understanding bias in research is essential to understanding causes and perpetuation of racism. In my first…