Welcome back! This post kicks off the 2026/27 year, and we have a lot to share!
Before looking forward, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past 12 months. We have published 78 pieces that showcase the diverse languages, topics, resources, and tools our team engages with, including the proceedings of The DO’s 2025 conference, edited by Hirohito Tsuji and James H. Morris, which compliments the growing awareness and use of AI in our work and workflows. Recordings from the conference are now available on YouTube, alongside those from previous conferences.
We also saw an increase in one-off guest submissions, with pieces continuing to roll in over the summer! If you’re interested in contributing to The DO, see our submission page for more information or contact Niels Lee, Editor for Guest Submissions, at guestposts.digitalorientalist[at]gmail.com.
Beyond the publishing calendar, the last year saw changes behind the scenes. Following a survey we ran in the summer of 2025 about The DO’s name and brand, we published a report detailing the results of the survey and the steps that we’re taking in response. These include new mentorship and shadowing schemes, more transparency about how The DO operates, and further work to diversify our team—see below for how that’s already taking shape. We welcome ongoing feedback and suggestions.
Thank you to everyone who made the last academic year possible: our editors, contributors, guest writers, social media team, and survey participants.
The DO Team 2026/2027
We’ve had another busy summer expanding our team. The DO team has grown from 48 members last September to 64!
Map showing the locations of The DO 2026/27 Team
This growth is a strong signal of the expanding community working at the intersection of DH and Middle Eastern, African, and Asian Studies. We are especially pleased to see more contributors in our African Studies and Southeast Asian Studies teams—the latter only formed last year.
To support a team this size, we’re introducing Managing Editor roles, which we’ll roll out gradually. The first is Sara Zanotta, previously Editor for Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies, who becomes Managing Editor for African, Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies.
Alongside this, we’ve merged two of our teams: Middle Eastern Studies and Persian, Turkic, and Biblical Studies now form a single Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies team. Maria S. Thomas and Tiziana Pascuito will co-edit, with Maria focusing on pre-modern studies and Tiziana on modern.
The rest of the editorial team remains largely unchanged:
- Emma Donington-Kiey – Editor for Central Asian Studies
- Orestis Georgalas – Editor for DH in General, and now also Editor for African Studies
- Raafat Gilani – Editor for South Asian Studies
- Niels Lee – Editor for Guest Submissions
- James H. Morris – Editor for Northeast Asian Studies
- Yashee Singh – Editor for South Asian Studies
- Hedren Sum – Editor for Southeast Asian Studies
- Hirohito Tsuji – Conference Manager and Editor
- Michel Wong joins the editorial team this year as Conference Manager and Editor, to support Hirohito with our growing conference
- Mariana Zorkina – Editor for Chinese Studies
- Rachael Griffiths – Editor-in-Chief
Contributors and Guest Contributors
We’re pleased to welcome back many familiar faces and introduce some new ones.
Returning Contributors and Guest Contributors:
- Aida Alavi – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Sunayani Bhattacharya – South Asian Studies
- Elizabeth Bishop – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Zachary Butler – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Raúl Cervera Álvarez – Northeast Asian Studies
- Helen Giunashvili – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Abdulqadir Haidermota – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Saniya Irfan – South Asian Studies
- Ephrem Ishac – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Aizat Ishembieva – Central Asian Studies
- Maciej Kurzynski – Chinese Studies
- Xiao Li – Chinese Studies
- Ilyes Mechentel – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- So Miyagawa – African Studies
- Zhaleh Nayeb – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Adrian Plau – South Asian Studies
- Edward A. S. Ross – Central Asian Studies
- Virgine Borges de Castilho Sacoman – Northeast Asian Studies
- Mona Hassan Ahmed Sawy – African Studies
- Dena Shamsizadeh – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Tomasz Sleziak – Northeast Asian Studies
- Emine Turkmen – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Soni Wadhwa – South Asian Studies
- Lu Wang – Chinese Studies
- Brian Tsz Ho Wong – Northeast Asian Studies
New Contributors and Guest Contributors:
- Nikhil Sanjay-Rekha Adsule – South Asian Studies
- Simran Bhimjyani – South Asian Studies
- Angeliki Coletsou – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Francesco Callegaro – African Studies
- Muntaha El-Mumin – African Studies
- Tendai Ganduri – African Studies
- Derya Idikurt – Central Asian Studies
- Aliona Ikonnikova – Chinese Studies
- Prince Kumar – South Asian Studies
- Marco La Marra – Northeast Asian Studies
- Rolland Long – DH in General
- Rimi Nandy – South Asian Studies
- Pham Bao Anh – Southeast Asian Studies
- Chanapang Pongpiboonkiat – Southeast Asian Studies
- Christoph Reichenbaecher – Northeast Asian Studies
- Kara Schneider – Central Asian Studies
- Martina Tremolada – African Studies
- Isabel Weitschies – Southeast Asian Studies
- Alex Worsfold – Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
- Fudie Zhao – Chinese Studies
Social Media
We have a completely new social media team this year! Renuka Kannan and Yuewen Wu will take on the role of Newsletter Editor, working to further develop our monthly newsletter, and Tayssir Khalfallah joins us as our Content Editor, focused on expanding our Instagram and LinkedIn presence.
And in a first for The DO, we’re also welcoming two dedicated design roles: Stacey Dowsell joins as Web Designer, and Caterina Peracchi as Digital Designer, supporting a refresh of our website, social media, and conference design.
Looking Forward
Community and exchange have always been at the heart of what we do, and this year we’re taking that further by bringing team members together outside The DO. On September 23rd, we’ll host our first roundtable, at the Transkribus User Conference (TUC) in Passau, Germany, where five members of The DO will explore “AI for under-represented manuscript traditions.” Just over a week later, on October 1st, three of our members will join a panel on sustainability and reusability in African and Middle Eastern Studies DH projects, at Sammlungen als Forschungsdaten: Digitalisierung, Zugänge und Nutzung (Collections as Research Data: Digitization, Access and Use) at Ruhr University Bochum.
These conversations feed directly into the sorts of collaborative, cross- institutional and -disciplinary work we want to foster; and we’re already looking ahead to our next virtual conference in the summer of 2027. More details to follow later in the year! If you’re working on DH in African, Asian, or Middle Eastern Studies contexts and want to connect or contribute, we’d like to hear from you! Drop us a message at digitalorientalist[at]gmail.com.
Here’s to another great year!
