Information Tools

Specialization

  • Artificial Intelligence

Research Areas

Courses

  • INFO 110 - Ai: Foundations And Society

Biography

Benjamin Charles Germain Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington, where he started the Lab for Computing Cultural Heritage. His research reimagines how we search and interpret cultural heritage collections using machine learning and computation. This research has three central goals: (1) developing large-scale search and discovery systems for digitized and born-digital collections; (2) leveraging these systems in order to advance research in the digital humanities and cultural heritage; (3) studying the ethical and sociotechnical implications of applying machine learning in this context.

Lee received his Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Washington, supported by a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship in machine learning. During his Ph.D., he developed Newspaper Navigator, a machine learning supported system that enables searching for text and images in 16.3 million historical newspaper articles. He has served as a Kluge Fellow in Digital Studies and an Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress, the inaugural Digital Humanities Associate Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Visiting Fellow in Harvard's Library Innovation Lab and Harvard’s History Department, and a Richard and Ina Willner Memorial Fellow in the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Washington.

Lee serves on the Board of Directors of the Digital Public Library of America. He is also a general editor at Digital Humanities Quarterly, an advisory board member of the Research Society of American Periodicals, an editorial board member of the Nineteenth-century Data Collective and Cultural Analytics, and a member of the Research & Engineering Advisory Council of the Harvard Institutional Data Initiative. He is a co-editor of the forthcoming "Debates in DH" volume Cultures of Scale: Disciplines, Data, Labor.

His public writing has appeared in The New Republic, WIRED, Longreads, Gawker, Current Affairs, Jacobin, Real Life, GoldFlakePaint, Protean, and Bright Wall/Dark Room.

He is currently recruiting Ph.D. students for Autumn, 2027. More information about the Lab for Computing Cultural Heritage can be found at: https://l4cch.github.io/lab-website/.

Education

  • Ph D, Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, 2023
  • MS, Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, 2020
  • BA, Astrophysics and Mathematics, Harvard College, 2017

Awards

  • Writing Award in Technology - American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), 2026
  • Best Digital Humanities Dataset - 2020 DH Awards, 2021
  • Best Resource Paper Runner-up - CIKM, 2020
  • summa cum laude - Harvard College, 2017
  • Thomas T. Hoopes Prize, 2017
  • John Harvard Scholar, 2015-2016
  • Phi Beta Kappa, 2016
  • Herchel Smith Harvard Undergraduate Science Research Fellow, 2015
  • Philip Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art - Harvard University, 2014
  • National Merit Scholarship, 2013

Memberships

  • Association for Computational Linguistics
  • Association for Computers and Humanities
  • Association for Information Science & Technology
  • Research Society for American Periodicals
  • American Historical Association
  • Association for Computing Machinery
  • Modern Language Association

Publications and Contributions

Presentations

  • AI & Libraries: A Landscape and Horizon of Work (2026)
    Harvard University - Cambridge, MA
  • AI & Libraries: Toward an AI Commons (2026)
    University of Calgary Libraries Staff Development Day - Calgary, Alberta, Canada
  • AI & Libraries: Where We Are Now (2026)
    Knight Foundation Library Leaders Conference 2026 - Miami, Florida
  • AI & The Future of Holocaust Memory: Reflections, Provocations, Refusals (2026)
    11th Annual Nebraska Forum on Digital Humanities - Lincoln, NE, U.S.A.
  • AI Literacy & Higher Education: Where We Go from Here (2026)
    Purdue University - West Lafayette, Indiana
  • AI Literacy & Learning in Libraries, Archives, and Museums (2026)
    Library of Congress AI Literacy & Learning Summit - Washington, DC
  • Computing Cultural Heritage: AI, Discoverability, and Scale (2026)
    Data, Archives and Information in Society (DAIS) Seminar - Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • Computing Cultural Heritage: Reimagining Search & Discovery (2026)
    University of Maryland Center for Archival Futures - College Park, Maryland
  • GovScape: Multimodal Search and Discovery for 10+ Million Government PDFs (2026)
    Harvard Law School - Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Minimal Computing in the Age of AI: Toward Principles for Sustainable and Accountable Systems in LAM Institutions (2026)
    Association for Computers and Humanities Conference (ACH 2026) - Virtual
  • Practical Perspectives on the Impact of AI on Library, Archive, and Museum Careers (2026)
    University of Washington CALMA Roundtable - Seattle, Washington
  • The Road Before Us (2026)
    Libraries and AI in Public Life event hosted by The Chicago Public Library and the Digital Public Library of America - Chicago, IL
  • Toward an AI Commons for Libraries: Where We Are and Where We Might Go from Here (2026)
    University of Nebraska – Lincoln Libraries - Lincoln, NE
  • A Year of AI & Public Libraries (2025)
    2025 Knight Library Leaders Conference - Miami, FL
  • AI and Libraries: Opportunities and Challenges for Discoverability (2025)
    Interactive AI Fair, Temple University - Philadelphia, PA
  • Computing Cultural Heritage: AI, Discoverability, and Scale (2025)
    Pacific Northwest Gigapop Advisory Council Annual Meeting - Seattle, Washington
  • Launching the Next Generation of Scholars with the Cole and Graduate Fellowships (2025)
    Daytime Panels: 50 Years of Impact on [UW] Campus and Beyond - Seattle, Washington
  • Newspaper Navigator: Collaboration, Computation, and Access (2025)
    Sorbonne University - Schmidt Sciences Humanities & AI Virtual Institute Convening - France
  • Past Meets Future: Human-AI Interaction, Digital Humanities, and Cultural Heritage (2025)
    Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) - Washington, D.C.
  • Re-animating Coetzee’s Computer-Generated Poetry (2025)
    Australian Society of Archivists - Virtual
  • Re-imagining Large-Scale Search & Discovery for Millions of Born-Digital Government Publications (2025)
    Archives as Data Conference - New York, NY
  • What Librarians Talk About When They Talk About AI (2025)
    Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Fall 2025 Membership Meeting - Washington, D.C.
  • AI Opportunities and Challenges (2024)
    Knight Foundation Library Leaders Conference 2024 - Miami, Florida
  • Computing Cultural Heritage: Toward Search & Discovery at Scale (2024)
    10th Annual Nebraska Forum on Digital Humanities - Lincoln, Nebraska
  • Literature & Large Language Models - Where Are We Now? (2024)
    MLA Annual Convention - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Past Meets Future Workshop (2024)
    IUI 2024 - Greenville, South Carolina
  • Re-Imagining Large-Scale Digital Search & Discovery for the Library of Congress's .gov Holdings (2024)
    IIPC Web Archiving Conference - Virtual
  • Reanimating and Reinterpreting the Archive with AI: Unifying Scholarship and Practice (2024)
    Fantastic Futures Conference - Canberrra, Australia
  • Reimagining Large-scale Search & Discovery for Digital Archives (2024)
    Opioid Industry Documents Archive National Symposium - Virtual
  • Reimagining Large-scale Search & Discovery for Web Archives at the Library of Congress (2024)
    Library of Congress Kluge Center Work-in-Progress Talk - Washington, D.C.
  • Reimagining Search & Discovery for Digital Collections: Toward Computing Cultural Heritage (2024)
    University of Canterbury Arts Digital Lab Seminar - Christchurch, New Zealand
  • The Future of Archives: Toward Computing Cultural Heritage (2024)
    Deakin University "Future of Archives" Event - Melbourne, Australia
  • Web Archives: Toward Search and Discovery at Scale (2024)
    Library of Congress Web Archiving Interest Group - Washington, D.C.
  • When Machine Learning Meets Cultural Heritage Collections (2024)
    University of Washington CALMA Seminar - Seattle, Washington
  • #WhyWebArchiving: Preserving Internet Content for Research Use (2023)
    Library of Congress & International Internet Preservation Consortium - Virtual
  • AI and Higher Education: Toward Interdisciplinarity in the Classroom (2023)
    St. Francis College All Faculty Talk - Brooklyn, New York
  • Computing on Cultural Heritage: Reports from an LC Labs Experiment (2023)
    American Historical Association 2023 - Philadelphia, PA
  • Newspaper Navigator: Hosting the Dataset and Deploying the Search Application (2023)
    Digital Library Federation Forum - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2023)
    Digital History Research Colloquium - Humboldt-Universität Berlin (Virtual)
  • Preserving and Analyzing Digital Texts (2023)
    Mellon-Rare Book School Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography - Virtual
  • Reimagining Search and Discovery for Digital Collections with Machine Learning (2023)
    University College London Sloane Lab Symposium Series - London, England (virtual)
  • Reimagining Search and Discovery for Digital Collections with Machine Learning (2023)
    Virginia Tech Computer Science Seminar Series - Virginia
  • Visual Content: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2023)
    Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Newspaper Portals Meet DH Conference - Virtual
  • #WhyWebArchiving: Preserving Internet Content for Research Use (2022)
    Strategic Visioning Workshop for Digital Strategy at the Library of Congress - Virtual
  • A Computational Periodicals Unconference: Exploring New Opportunities for Critical and Collaborative Inquiry (2022)
    DH Unbound 2022 - Virtual
  • Compounded Mediation: A Data Archaeology of the Newspaper Navigator Dataset (2022)
    Digital Humanities + iSchool (DHIS) Collective Meeting, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - Virtual
  • Compounded Mediation: Excavating the Newspaper Navigator Dataset (2022)
    Fifth Annual GHI Conference on Digital Humanities and Digital History, German Historical Institute Washington - Virtual
  • How to Get Published in Academic Journals (2022)
    Critical Digital Methods Institute CDMI Workshop Series, University of Toronto - Virtual
  • Interaction (2022)
    CCC Artificial Intelligence Roadmap Workshop 2 - Denver, CO
  • New Directions for Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Periodical Studies (2022)
    Research Society for American Periodicals - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Hosting the Dataset and Deploying the Search Application (2022)
    Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections 2022, Library of Congress - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Open Faceted Search for 1.5 Million Images (2022)
    Computer Science & Engineering HCI Seminar, The University of Washington - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2022)
    Digital Humanities 2022 - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2022)
    Fantastic Futures 2021 - Virtual
  • Novel Machine Learning Methods for Computing Cultural Heritage: An Interdisciplinary Approach (2022)
    Center for Digital Humanities, Princeton University - Virtual
  • Serving Researchers With Public Web Archive Datasets in the Cloud (2022)
    IIPC Web Archiving Conference - Virtual
  • The Digital Humanities and the Ladino Press: Unlocking Historic Ladino Newspapers with Machine Learning (2022)
    ucLADINO Conference 2022 - Virtual
  • Using Machine Learning to Extract and Analyze Advertisements in Historic Ladino Newspapers, 1890-1948 (2022)
    Studying Advertisements in pre-1939 Jewish Press: Methods and Challenges Workshop, University of Wrocław - Virtual
  • Compounded Mediation: A Data Archaeology of the Newspaper Navigator Dataset (2021)
    Digital History of Science Working Group, Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine - Virtual
  • Cowboys, Computers, and Cartoons: Excavating and Explicating America’s Political Cartoons (2021)
    Association for Documentary Editing Annual Meeting - Virtual
  • Data & Technologies (2021)
    Collective Wisdom Workshop - Virtual
  • From Chronicling America to Newspaper Navigator: Improving Access to Historic Newspaper Photos at the Library of Congress through Machine Learning (2021)
    NewsEye International Conference - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2021)
    Discovery Series, Harvard University - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2021)
    Honors Program Speaker Series, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2021)
    Digital History Seminar Series, Institute of Historical Research, University of London School of Advanced Study - Virtual
  • Sephardic Experiences of Modernity: Newspapers, Migrants and Midwives (2021)
    Stroum Center for Jewish Studies Colloquium, The University of Washington - Virtual
  • The Digital Humanities and the Ladino Press: Using Machine Learning to Extract and Analyze Visual Content in Historic Ladino Newspapers (2021)
    #DHJewish 2021 - Jewish Studies in the Digital Age Conference - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator Data Jam (2020)
    Library of Congress - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: An Introduction & Demo (2020)
    Living with Machines Group, The Alan Turing Institute & British Library - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2020)
    Drexel University - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2020)
    Collections as Data Discussion Series, Center for Digital Humanities & Princeton University Library - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2020)
    Computer Vision for Digital Heritage, The Alan Turing Institute - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Digitized Newspapers with Machine Learning (2020)
    Digital History Workshop, The Johns Hopkins University - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Historic Newspapers with Machine Learning (2020)
    Data Dialogue Series, Duke University - Virtual
  • Newspaper Navigator: Reimagining Library Search and Discovery with Machine Learning (2020)
    ULS Technology in University Libraries Committee Tech Forum - Virtual
  • Seeing Editors: Metadata, Machine Learning, and the Shapes of Social Justice (2020)
    National Endowment for the Humanities & Library of Congress - Virtual
  • Teaching Computers to Read Ladino (2020)
    Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, The University of Washington - Virtual
  • Data Visualization (2019)
    DIRAC Institute Lunch Seminar, University of Washington - Seattle, WA
  • Mapping the University of Washington’s Sephardic Studies Collection (2019)
    GIS Symposium, University of Washington - Seattle, WA
  • Needles in a Digital Haystack: Improving Digital Archive Research (2019)
    Digital Futures Discovery Series, Harvard University - Cambridge, MA
  • The International Tracing Service and Machine Learning (2019)
    Machine Learning + Libraries Summit, Library of Congress - Washington, D.C.
  • Applying Digital Humanities Research Methods to Holocaust Studies: A Case Study of the Roman Catholic Clerical Prisoners in the Dachau Concentration Camp (2018)
    Committee on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Washington, D.C.
  • ITS and Machine Learning (2018)
    The International Tracing Service Archive - Virtual
  • Q&A Session (2018)
    UW CSE NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program - Seattle, WA
  • The Clergy in Dachau and Digital Humanities (2018)
    The Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Washington, D.C.
  • The International Tracing Service Archive and Machine Learning (2018)
    LC Labs, Library of Congress - Washington, D.C.
  • The International Tracing Service Archive and Machine Learning (2018)
    Data Science Seminar, Smithsonian Data Science Lab - Washington, D.C.
  • The International Tracing Service Archive and Machine Learning (2018)
    The Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Washington, D.C.
  • Using Computer Vision and Machine Learning to Classify ITS CNI Cards (2017)
    Improving Access to the ITS Digital Archive Workshop, Wiener Holocaust Library - Virtual
  • Computing Cultural Heritage: Toward Search and Discovery at Scale using AI
    HathiTrust Research Center TORCHLITE Hackathon - Urbana-Champaign, Illinois