Professional Activity

Conference Organisation

Symposium convener (with Prof Alan Bowman and Prof Sir Mike Brady) "E-research on texts and images colloquium", 11th-12th May 2010, British Academy, London.

Workshop Organiser and Chair, "Users, Usability and User-engagement Based on e-Research, and Web 2.0". eScience Institute Workshop. Oxford eResearch Centre, University of Oxford, January 2009.

Workshop Organiser and Chair, "Users and Usability Workshop". eScience 2009, 5th IEEE Conference on e-Science. University of Oxford, December 2009.

Reviews

Terras, M. (Forthcoming, 2010). Review of "Mediated Memories in the Digital Age", J. van Dijck, Stanford University Press. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews.

Terras, M. (Forthcoming, 2010). Review of "Web Accessibility, practical advice for the library and information professional". Jenny Craven (ed). Facet, 2008. Journal of Documentation.

Terras, M. (2010). Review of Beyond Illustration: 2D and 3D Digital Tools for Discovery in Archaeology. Eds Frischer, B. and Dakouri-Hild, A. (2008). BAR International Series 1805. Archaeopress, Oxford. Internet Archaeology.

Terras, M. (2009). Review of Schreibman (S.), Siemens (R.), Unsworth (J.) (eds). "A Companion to Digital Humanities". Blackwell Publishing, Oxford. Classical Review, Cambridge University Press. 59.1. pp 288-290

Terras, M. (2008). Review of Digital Heritage: Applying Digital Imaging to Cultural Heritage. Lindsay MacDonald (ed.). Amsterdam etc.: Butterworth-Heinemann / Elsevier, 2006. LLC, 23: 244 - 246

Terras, M. (2008). Review of René van Horik (2005)"Permanent Pixels: Building blocks for the longevity of digital surrogates of historical photographs". Literary and Linguistic Computing, 23:241-242

Terras, M. (2007). Review of J. Hemsley, V. Cappellini, and G. Stanke "Digital Applications for Cultural and Heritage Institutions". Journal of Documentation, Volume 63, Number 3, p. 431-434

Terras, M. (2007) Review of Lorna M. Hughes "Digitizing Collections. Strategic Issues for the Information Manager". Literary and Linguistic Computing 22:105-106

Terras, M. (2007). Review of G.E. Gorman and P. Clayton "Qualitative Research for the Information Profession: A Practical Handbook", Literary and Linguistic Computing 22:246-248

Guides to Good Practice

"Creating and Using Virtual Reality: a Guide for the Arts and Humanities" (with Rachel Beech, Sally Exon, Marc Fabri, Kate Fernie, Michael Gerhard). Arts and Humanities Data Service Guide to Good Practice Series, 2002.

External Teaching

Manuscript & Electronic Text Academy: META04 (with Edward Vanhoutte and Ron Van Den Branden), 13 - 17 September 2004, Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, Gent (Belgium)

Book and Text Studies Workshop: Humanties Computing (with Edward Vanhoutte and Ron Van Den Branden). Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, 8-12 September 2003

Digitisation for Humanities Professionals. Summer School, Humanties Advanced Technology and Information Institute, University of Glasgow. July 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999

Prizes and nominations

Nominated: UCL Provost's Award for Public Engagement, 2010.

Outstanding Paper Award 2009, Emerald Literati Network 2009, in "Program" Journal. Claire Warwick, Melissa Terras, Isabel Galina, Paul Huntington and Nikoleta Pappa."Library and information resources and users of digital resources in the humanities". Program, Volume 42 number 1.

Graduate Student Award, Association of Literary and Linguistic Computing, June 2000.

Other Scholarly Activity

Current:

Advisory Board, Digital Resource and Database of Palaeography, Manuscripts and Diplomatic (2010-1014).
Advisory Board, Digital Humanities as Wissensraum: Hidden Histories c. 1949-1980. (2011).
Peer Review College Member, Arts and Humanities Research Council (2007-2015).
Member, European Science Foundation Pool of Reviewers (2009-2012).
Member of Conference Progam Committee, 2010 IEEE 6th International Conference on e-Science www.escience2010.org.
Member of Seminar Organising Committee, Digital Classicist Summer Seminar Series (2009-).
Steering committee member, Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (2009-2011).
Officer of the Association of Literary and Linguistic Computing.
Secretary of the Association of Literary and Linguistic Computing, (2009-2011).
Executive Council member of the Association for Computing and the Humanities.
Vice President of the Association for Computing and the Humanities2008-2009.
General Editor, Digital Humanities Quarterly
International Editorial Board Member, TEI Extramural Journal (TEI-EJ). (2009- ).
Journal Board Member, Literary and Linguistic Computing (2005- ).
Journal Board Member, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (2007- ).
External Examiner, Humanities Advanced Technology and Information. Institute, University of Glasgow (2006-2010).
External Examiner, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, Kings College London (2009-2012).
Member of Conference Program Committee, eScience 2010.
Co-Manager TEI By Example.
Consultant: Text Image Linking Environment Project (TILE), University of Maryland (NEH Preservation and Access: Humanities Collections and Resources program, 2009-2011).
Member of UCL Museums & Collections Review Steering Committee.
Member of UCL Community Archives Project Steering Committee.
Member of UCL Research Computing Technology Watch Panel.
Member of the Interest Group of the London Charter for the use of 3-Dimensional Visualisation in the Research and Communication of Cultural Heritage.
Member, Classical Association
Member, Digital Classicist
Member, Canadian Historical Association
Member, SDH/SEMI: Society for Digital Humanities/Société pour l'étude des médias interactifs

Member of Conference Organising Committee, Digital Humanities 2008.
Membership Services Co-ordinator, ALLC (2006-2009).
Membership Services Co-ordinator, ACH (2006-2009).
Membership Services Officer, Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (2007-9).
Acting Course Director, MA in Electronic Communication and Publishing, UCL DIS January - April 2007.
London Workshop Leader and Project Partner, The Access Grid in Collaborative Arts and Humanities Research. AHRC e-Science in the Arts and Humanities Workshop Series, University of Sheffield. 2006-7.
Expert Seminar Leader (Library and Information Studies): e-Science Scoping Study for the Arts and Humanities. Arts and Humanities Data Service, 2005-6.
ARIA Subject Expert (Librarianship, Information and Museum Studies) ARIA: Arts and Humanities Research ICT Awareness and Training, De Montford University. Spring 2005-7.
Acting Secretary of the Association of Literary and Linguistic Computing, (2006).

Public Outreach/ Media

""Digital Humanities 2010: Wordt het papieren boek erfgoed? 'Toekomst voor digitaal onderzoek' Sustainability, samenwerking en infrastructuur waren centrale begrippen op de jaarlijkse Digital Humanities Conferentie, die van 7 tot 11 juni in het Londonse Kings College plaatsvond.", e-data&research, newsletter of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, September 2010.

"All about me, dot com", expert quoted in article surveying academics' personal websites, and issues of online identity. Times Higher Education, 19th August 2010.

"Leader: Members-only code is outdated", report on DH2010 Keynote in Times Higher Education, 15th July 2010.

"As a discipline, we suck online", report on DH2010 Keynote in Times Higher Education, 15th July 2010.

Taking the Plinth, Fife Free Press, 10th September 2009. p.8.

Melissa Terras during her Hour on the Plinth, Dundee Courier, 8th September 2009.

Participant in One and Other, Antony Gormley Sculpture, Trafalgar Square, 2nd September 2009. http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Melissa_T

UCL Lecturer to Stream Media From the Plinth, UCL News, 1st Sept 2009. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0909/09090103

Letchworth lecturer's internet art from capital's heart, Comet Newspaper, 1st September 2009. http://www.thecomet.net/search/story.aspx?brand=CMTOnline&category=News&itemid=WEED01%20Sep%202009%2012:53:26:650&tBrand=CMTOnline&tCategory=search

Adventures in Digital Academia, UCL News, 10th August 2009. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0908/09081001

Interview on BBC 6 Radio, Seaun Keaveny Breakfast Show, Wednesday 29th August 2009.

Interview of BBC 4 Radio, The Material World. January 10th 2008. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/thematerialworld_20080110.shtml

Doctoral Thesis Synopsis

Image to Interpretation: Towards An Intelligent System to Aid Historians in the Reading of the Vindolanda Texts (Dept of Engineering Science, University of Oxford 2002).

The Roman stylus tablets from Vindolanda, a fort on Hadrian's Wall, are unsurpassed sources for Ancient Historians, although they are deteriorated and difficult to read. Advanced imaging techniques developed at the University of Oxford have allowed their surfaces to be analysed. To aid historians in their task, an appropriate knowledge based system was developed to propagate potential interpretations of the incisions. This was accomplished by constructing a computer model that mimicked the processes Ancient Historians use whilst reading texts, which generated plausible interpretations from images of the texts. The doctoral work included developing a markup scheme to annotate images of text in XML, using textual processing to construct linguistic datasets, and utilising advanced Artificial Intelligence techniques such as Minimum Description Length to construct the architecture for the system. The resulting system takes images as an input and generates probable interpretations: functioning as a "cognitive visual system".