DH Hub Team

As Digital Humanities Officer, Abbie coordinates the Hub’s activities and works operationally within the IDRC DH to support Digital Humanities projects within the University, such as those that use digital methods to address humanities research questions or that employ critical traditions in the humanities to examine digital technologies. Abbie supports DH grant development by providing guidance and feedback, and she also organises and delivers training and events here at the University.                                                                                   

Abbie is nearing the completion of a history PhD thesis that interrogates the 1924 Conservative government, citizenship, and belonging. She was also involved with the Astor100 impact project at the University of Reading, and is currently applying her DH specialism to supporting a future grant bid in this area. She is particularly interested in introducing PGRs to DH methods and practices to facilitate a home research pipeline. 

Dr Mara Oliva is an Associate Professor in Modern US History at the University of Reading and a Digital Humanities specialist within the University’s Digital Humanities Hub. She works with researchers across disciplines to develop robust, innovative, and sustainable approaches to Digital Humanities research. 

Within the Hub, she acts as an adviser on research design and methodology for Digital Humanities projects, supporting colleagues in shaping interdisciplinary proposals, refining analytical approaches, and embedding digital methods into humanities research. Her expertise spans qualitative and computational approaches, as well as experimental forms of digital historical practice. She also provides guidance on sustainability in Digital Humanities, with a particular focus on environmentally responsible research practices, including the design of low-impact digital workflows, responsible use of computational tools, and longer-term planning for sustainable research infrastructures and outputs. 

Mara has a strong interest in methodological innovation, including emerging approaches to historical interpretation that challenge conventional disciplinary boundaries. She is committed to supporting collaborative, open, and future-facing research cultures that enable meaningful exchange between humanities scholarship, technology, and external partners such as cultural organisations and archives. 

Rachel is the Research Development Manager for the Heritage and Creativity research team at the University of Reading, supporting researchers from across the arts and humanities disciplines to develop research ideas into high-quality proposals to secure external grant funding.  She is the first port of call for grant applications and within the DH Hub, she oversees the organisation of the team’s support for those with a digital element. She works closely with other team members to develop infrastructure and systems support to allow DH projects to be fully planned and developed. 

Rachel is also a co-director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in DH, and provides a key link between the centre’s strategic development and the more hands-on support provided by the DH Hub. 

Robert manages the University’s Research Data Service. He provides research data management support and training, assists with the preparation of data management plans in applications for funding, and advises on the use of services for data storage, computation, and archiving. He manages the University’s data repository, the Research Data Archive, which can be used to preserve and provide long-term access to research data.

Robert’s role in the Hub includes providing research data management support for proposals and projects, and overseeing the development of sustainable service provision. He also supports the University’s Open Research initiative, which works to promote the adoption of open practices in research. Many of the fundamental principles of Open Research are shared with Digital Humanities, such as accessibility, transparency, reproducibility, and collaboration.

As a Research Software Engineer, Paul provides specialist support for teaching and research, arranging the provision and setup of digital research infrastructure and services (including software and storage), and training in research programming and use of computing resources. As part of the Hub team’s support for research projects, he can advise on the technical requirements and solutions, specify digital skills requirements and deliver or identify the appropriate training required. Paul’s role in the DH Hub overlaps with his work to establish a more prominent profile for Research Software Engineering at UoR.

Sharon Maxwell is an archivist with responsibility for leading on cataloguing and collections-based projects for the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) archive and the University of Reading Special Collections. Sharon convenes the Systems & Infrastructure Group and Cataloguing meetings. Sharon is currently contributing to the Relocating Filmstrips, Remapping Europe project, led by the University of St Andrews. Previous research project contributions include cataloguing the photographs and digital content on the Legacy of Stephen Dwoskin project and Critical Cataloguing for Digital Preservation, led by the University of Southampton.

Sharon is the Museums & Collections representative on the Digital Humanities Hub Team and has twice attended the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School for Linked Open Data (2022) and AI in the Library (2025).

Sharon’s broad professional and research interests include visualisation and access to catalogue metadata, digital preservation, creation of classification schemes, archival utilisation within digital humanities scholarship, the preservation and cataloguing of filmstrips and records of early higher education institutions. Sharon is a committee member of the Higher Education Archive Programme (HEAP) and the Group for Literary Archives and Manuscripts (GLAM).

As one of two Associate Directors in the Library, Chrissie has overall responsibility responsible for supporting and advancing research and learning within the University. She manages the Collections team, Open Research team, Digital Humanities Hub and the Library Systems team. Chrissie is a member of the Library’s Senior Management Team and contributes to the leadership, planning, policy making and decision-making on University Library and Collections strategy and operations, as well as supporting and developing services in support of all aspects of research and scholarship. She oversees the sustainable integration of the DH Hub into the Library’s support provision for researchers.