Introducing The DO 2025/26 Team

Welcome back to another year at The DO!

This post kicks off the beginning of the 2025/26 year! Before looking forward, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past 12 months. Alongside a packed publishing calendar of 75 pieces that showcased everything from TEI to LLM; databases to pedagogy; reviews and interviews and more – we closed out the year with our virtual conference, featuring 15 brilliant and thought-provoking papers and attended by over 120 people. Hirohito Tsuji, our Conference Manager and Editor, wrote a short report which was published yesterday in our Newsletter.

We would like to thank everyone who has contributed their time and expertise – our editors, contributors, guest writers, conference presenters, and social media team – for their part in the success of the last academic year.

The DO Team 2025/2026

We have had another busy summer, expanding our team. The DO team has grown from ~30 members in September 2022 to 48!

The DO Team 2025/26

Along with this growth, we have undergone some more restructuring. Last year, we decided to split the Middle Eastern and African section into three sub-teams. From this year, the Central and South Asian section is now organised into four sub-teams:

• Emma Donington-Kiey is Editor for Central Asian Studies and will continue to write pieces on Japanese Studies
• Raafat Gilani, a new addition to The DO, is Editor for South Asian Studies. His team’s general focus and research is around historical documentation, preservation, and representation
• Yashee Singh, also a new member of The DO, joins us as Editor for South Asian Studies. Her team is working on computational approaches to a range of different South Asian literature and media
• Hedren Sum, also new to The DO this year, is Editor for Southeast Asian Studies

We have also created an additional section: DH in General, for contributions that focus on DH theories, ethics, and/or practices more widely. Orestis Georgalas is Editor.

James H. Morris and Mariana Zorkina will continue their roles as Editor for Northeast Asian Studies and Editor for Chinese Studies, respectively. Shiva Mihan, Maria S. Thomas, and Sara Zanotta will also continue their roles as Editor for African Studies, Editor for Middle Eastern Studies, and Editor for Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies. Hirohito Tsuji remains as Conference Manager and Editor.

To support our growing number of guest submissions, Niels Lee is taking on the newly-created role of Editor for Guest Submissions. A reminder that we now accept one-off submissions on a rolling basis. See our submission page for more information or contact Niels at guestposts.digitalorientalist@gmail.com.

And finally, Rachael Griffiths is returning as Editor in Chief.

Contributors and Guest Contributors

We are pleased to welcome back many familiar faces and introduce some new ones:

Returning Contributors and Guest Contributors:

• Aida Alavi – Middle Eastern Studies
• Joanne Bernardi – Northeast Asian Studies
• Erica Biagetti – South Asian Studies
• Elizabeth Bishop – Middle Eastern Studies
• Virgine Borges de Castilho Sacoman – Northeast Asian Studies
• Gursimran Kaur Butalia – South Asian Studies
• Zachary Butler – Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies
• Alice Casalini – Central Asian Studies
• Raúl Cervera Álvarez – Northeast Asian Studies
• Helen Giunashvili – Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies
• Ephrem Ishac – Middle Eastern Studies
• Aizat Ishembieva – Central Asian Studies
• Maciej Kurzynski – Chinese Studies
• Ilyes Mechentel – Middle Eastern Studies
• So Miyagawa – African Studies
• Adrian Plau – South Asian Studies
• Maddalena Poli – Chinese Studies
• Edward A. S. Ross – Central Asian Studies
• Dena Shamsizadeh – Middle Eastern Studies
• Tomasz Sleziak – Northeast Asian Studies
• Emine Turkmen – Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies
• Soni Wadhwa – South Asian Studies
• Lu Wang – Chinese Studies
• Anaïs Wion – African Studies
• Brian Tsz Ho Wong – Northeast Asian Studies

New Contributors and Guest Contributors:

• Sunayani Bhattacharya – South Asian Studies
• Abdulqadir Haidermota – Middle Eastern Studies
• Saniya Irfan – South Asian Studies
• Xiao Li – Chinese Studies
• Zhaleh Nayeb – Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies
• Tiziana Pasciuto – DH in General
• Mona Hassan Ahmed Sawy – African Studies
• Leon Woltermann – Southeast Asian Studies
• Michel Wong – Central Asian Studies
• Enes Yılandiloğlu – Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies

Looking Forward to Another Great Year

We are excited about what’s coming up this year. In October, we will be celebrating our 600th published piece – we will be sure to shout from the rooftops about this! We will also be publishing the proceedings from our conference later this year, including both recordings on our YouTube (where you can also find recordings from previous conferences) and written pieces on The DO website. Additionally, we will be sharing the results of the rebrand survey we conducted over the summer and announcing the outcomes of that process.

The DO chops and changes every year – this expansion of geographical, theoretical, practical, and methodological approaches is exciting and encouraging – but at the heart of it all is a group of people who want to share their experiences and applications of DH. At its heart is community, and we look forward to another year of learning from this community.

Whether you are a seasoned digital humanist or just beginning to explore what DH can offer, we invite you to be part of our growing community. Please feel free to reach out to us if there is anything you would like to see, and don’t forget that we welcome guest submissions year-round.

Here’s to another great year!