Mark J. Hill

Dr Mark J. Hill

King’s College London
Strand Building, London, WC2R 2LS

ORCID: 0000-0001-7273-1775

Summary

Lecturer with interdisciplinary background encompassing methodological (digital humanities, computational social science, quantitative and qualitative research methods, data analysis) and substantive (history, cultural studies, politics, philosophy) research and teaching. Internationally recognised in combining data science methods with traditional data sources to conduct robust and methodologically sound research. Published award-winning research in top-ranked peer-reviewed journals and invited to speak at events in the UK, US, Norway, Finland, and online. Winner and nominee of multiple teaching awards and HEA Fellow. Experience working with private-sector and public-sector partners on complex data analysis projects. Proven ability to develop relationships across disciplines and industries.

Research Interests

Digital humanities; history; computational social science; interdisciplinary research; history of political thought; quantitative text analysis; natural language processing; social network analysis.

Education

DPhil, University of Oxford, Brasenose College, 2009 – 2014

• Dissertation: “Founding and Re-Founding: A Problem in Rousseau’s Political Thought and Action.”
• An investigation into the distinction in Rousseau’s political thought between moments of political foundation and cases of institutional and social re-foundation.

MSc Political Theory (Research), London School of Economics and Political Science, 2007 – 2009

• Dissertation: “Presenters and Spectators: The Emergence of the Social Sphere in Early Eighteenth-Century London”

BA Political Science (Honours), Concordia University (Montreal), 2003 – 2007

Current Employment

Lecturer in Cultural Computation, King’s College London

Previous Employment

Lecturer, University of Kent, Canterbury, 2021– 2024

• Lecturer in Computational Social Science.
• Taught computational social science methods, supporting students in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, Politics and International Relations, and the Q-Step Centre, a Nuffield Foundation and HEFCE funded project launched in 2013 as “a systematic response to the shortage of quantitatively-skilled social science graduates”.
• Teaching responsibilities include undergraduate and graduate level courses covering quantitative and qualitative research and methods, cultural studies, and critical thinking.
• Additionally, developed and teach a module on researching digital culture and society for students without a quantitative background introducing students to using various forms of digital analysis (including general numerical analyses, text analysis, and geo-spatial approaches).
• Pastoral roles include academic advising undergraduate students, supervising dissertations for undergraduates, postgraduates, groups on the “Year in Data Analytics” programme, and co-supervising one PhD student who is working on GIS technologies mediating urban spaces.
• Was Co-Director of Studies during a complex period of restructuring.

Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, 2017 – 2021

• Part of the Helsinki Computational History Research Group (COMHIS) in the department of Digital Humanities where I worked collaboratively and independently on: extensively cleaning and harmonizing semi-structured metadata from the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC); extracted and analysed historical networks from bibliographic metadata; conducted natural language processing (NLP) and quantitative text analysis on historical texts; statistically investigated Optical Character Recognition (OCR); taught and convened on both digital humanities and intellectual history courses; helped organise the Helsinki Digital Humanities Hackathon.

Senior Assessment Researcher, Pearson UK, London, 2021

• A point of expertise for assessment-related research methodology and procedures, with a focus on the evaluation and analysis of quantitative data.
• Duties included: leading research and evaluation projects with responsibilities for overseeing research design, data collection, validation, and the evaluation of outcomes; providing research evidence using a variety of appropriate methodologies, with a focus on quantitative approaches; building appropriate data visualization tools to disseminate research outcomes; liaising and developing relationships with colleagues and external stakeholders (including academic partners and government bodies across the UK) to understand research needs and disseminate research findings; support the Director of Research in the production of appropriate research dissemination strategies.
• While not work in a higher education institution, the research role has resulted in academic presentations and publications.

Fellow, London School of Economics, London, 2013 – 2017

• LSE Fellow in the Department of Government (taught “Introduction to Political Theory” and supervised undergraduate dissertations); research supervisor for LSE GROUPS (2014) and LSE-Imperial College GROUPS (2015); guest teacher for LSE100, a compulsory undergraduate course offering an introduction to the social sciences and social science methods from varying academic perspectives and disciplines.

Deputy Chief Examiner, University of London, London, 2014 – 2017

• Deputy Chief Examiner for the University of London’s International Programme (History of Political Thought).

Adjunct Lecturer, Kingston University, London, 2012 – 2014

• Lecturer and seminar teacher on second year political theory course (Modern Political Thought); lecturer on a first year political science course (Another World is Possible); module leader, lecturer, and seminar teacher for a first year international relations course (Issues in International Politics); and seminar teacher for a second year political theory course (Theories of Justice).

Guest Lecturer, Queen Mary, London, London, 2012 – 2014

• Lecturer and seminar teacher for third year political theory course (Theories of Self); seminar teacher for first year introduction to political science course (Introduction to Politics).

Publications

Forthcoming

• Mikko Tolonen, Jani Marjanen, Mark J. Hill, Leo Lahti. “Book Formats and Reading Habits in Early Modern Europe” in Library Catalogues as Data: Research, Practice, and Usage (Facet Publishing, 2025).

In Print (First or solo author)

• Mark J. Hill, Ville Vaara, Mikko Tolonen. “Communication and idea transmission across historical communities: A quantitative analysis of Early Modern Nonconformist networks” in Huntington Library Quarterly (2024). DOI: 10.1353/hlq.2023.a936422
• Mark J. Hill. “Rousseau and Poland: A pragmatic rejuvenation rather than ideal reforms,” in Constitutional Moments: Founding Myths, Charters and Constitutions through History (Brill, 2024). DOI: 10.1163/9789004549159_014
• Mark J. Hill, Mikko Tolonen. “A Computational Investigation into the Authorship of Sister Peg,” in Eighteenth-Century Studies 54.4 (2021). DOI: 10.1353/ecs.2021.0095
• Mark J. Hill. “看不見的詮釋：對數位人文學和思想史的反思,” in New Directions in Intellectual History (Taipei: Linking Publishing Company, 2020) (Translation of “Invisible Interpretations: Reflections on the Digital Humanities and Intellectual History”).
• Mark J. Hill, Ville Vaara, Tanja Säily, Leo Lahti, Mikko Tolonen. “Reconstructing Intellectual Networks: From bibliographic metadata to historical material,” in Proceedings of the Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries (2019). DOI: 10.5617/dhnbpub.11096
• Mark J. Hill, Simon Hengchen. “Quantifying the impact of dirty OCR on historical text analysis: Eighteenth Century Collections Online as a case study,” in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (2019). 10.1093/llc/fqz024
• Mark J. Hill. “Actors and Spectators: Rousseau’s contribution to eighteenth century debates on self-interest,” in Adam Smith and Rousseau: Ethics, Politics, Economics. Edinburgh University Press (2018). URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/adam-smith-and-rousseau/actors-and-spectators-rousseaus-contribution-to-the-eighteenthcentury-debate-on-selfinterest/27362CFC1EABCF6CFA889B1B25075DF4
• Mark J. Hill. “Digital Text Collections: Electronic Enlightenment,” in RIDE 6 (2017). DOI: 10.18716/ride.a.6.7
• Mark J. Hill. “Enlightened ‘Savages’: Rousseau’s Social Contract and the ‘Brave People’ of Corsica,” in History of Political Thought 38.3 (2017). URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26210461
• Mark J. Hill. “Invisible Interpretations: Reflections on the Digital Humanities and Intellectual History,” in Global Intellectual History 1.2 (2017). DOI: 10.1080/23801883.2017.1304162

In Print (Contributing author)

• M. Niksic, L. Forbes, D. Whiting, K. Day, M.J. Hill, S Hotham. “Understanding complex research-related relationships in public health: a social network analysis (SNA) in Medway.” J Epidemiol Community Health 78:A54 (2024). DOI: doi.org/10.1136/jech-2024-SSMabstracts.112
• Jenefer Golding, Mark J. Hill, Irene Custodio, Grace Grima. “Gender, self-perception, and mathematics: the 2020 England, Wales and Northern Ireland PISA Field Trial,” in Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics 41.3 (2022).
• Mikko Tolonen, Mark J. Hill, A. Z. Ijaz, Ville Vaara, Leo Lahti. “Examining the Early Modern Canon: The English Short Title Catalogue and Large-Scale Patterns of Cultural Production,” in Data Visualization in Enlightenment Literature and Culture (Palgrave Millican, 2021). DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-54913-8_3

Invited Talks, Seminars, and Workshops

• Computational Analysis of Semantic Change Across Different Environments, Helsinki, 2025
  • Invited to present research and lead workshop for PhD students on Maria Skłodowska-Curie and UKRI funded international training project
• Digital Humanities & Research Software Engineering Summer, London, 2025
  • Presented case studies on the use of High Performance Computing (HPC) in Digital Humanities research
• Durham Sociology, Health, and Technology Research Seminar, Durham, 2024
  • Presented research into cultural discourse around digital health apps (AI Chat Bots and Mood Tracking) with Vince Miller and Tiago Moreira
• AI, Teaching and Research in the Humanities, London, 2024
  • Invited participant at a workshop hosted by the School of Advanced Study that brought together academics, learning technologists and AI researchers/developers to build a shared vocabulary and better prepare humanities researchers for the AI-inflected present
• Loughborough University Digital Humanities Seminar, Online, 2021
  • Presented on research into quantitative methods for identifying, analysing, and describing seventeenth-century religious language
• Quentin Skinner’s ‘Meaning and Understanding’ after 50 Years, London, 2021
  • Presented on digital humanities methods and intellectual history at the British Academy event
• CILIP UK Electronic Information Group (UKeiG) Member’s Day and AGM, Online, 2020
  • Presented: “Open Data Practices with Closed Data Sources”
• Gale Digital Humanities Webinars, Online, 2020
  • Presented: “Developing a Digital Humanities Methods Course”
• Literary Networks and Networks in Literature, Oslo, 2019
  • Invited by the National Library of Norway to present on extracting social network data from historical bibliographic records
• Helsinki Digital Humanities Research Seminar, Helsinki, 2018
  • Presented: “Anonymity and Ambiguity in Historical Texts: Methods in computational authorship attribution”
• Helsinki Digital Humanities Research Seminar, Helsinki, 2018
  • Presented: “The Public Sphere in the Eighteenth Century: Perspectives from intellectual history and the digital humanities”
• History of Political Ideas Early Career Seminar (IHR), London, 2015
  • Presented: “Rousseau and the ‘brave’ people of Corsica”
• Oxford Besterman Centre for the Enlightenment Workshop, Oxford, 2013
  • Presented a working paper on Rousseau’s political theory

Selected Conferences and Workshops (First or solo-author)

• Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms, Vienna, 2025
  • “Catching Stray Balls: Football, fandom, and the impact on digital discourse”
• PreTrain, London, 2025
  • “Catching Stray Balls: Football, fandom, and the impact on digital discourse”
• International Conference on Social Media & Society, London, 2024
  • “Mass events and collective sentiment on digital platforms” (with Rafal Zaborowski)
• Cultural Data Analytics 2023, Tallinn, 2023
  • “Conceptual shift or continental drift? A computational and cultural investigation into the changing concept of Europe” (with Paul Nulty)
• British Sociological Association (Medical Sociology), Sussex, 2023
  • “Mental Health Apps and the Self: A Computational Analysis of Public Discourse” (with Tiago Moreira and Vince Miller)
• Digitizing Enlightenment, Montpellier, 2022
  • “New Perspectives into Intellectual Networks through Historical Metadata”
• Association of Education Assessment Europe, Online, 2021
  • “A study of gender, self-perception, and mathematics: The 2020 England, Wales, and Northern Ireland PISA Field Trial”
• Networking Archives Colloquium, Online, 2020
  • “Communication and idea transmission across historical communities: A quantitative analysis of Early Modern intellectual networks”
• Digitizing Enlightenment, Edinburgh, 2019
  • “New methods, new approaches, and new resources”
• International Congress on the Enlightenment, Edinburgh, 2019
  • “Identifying Enlightenment Authorship: A Quantitative Analysis of the ESTC”
• Digital Humanities, Utrecht, 2019
  • “Patterns of Early Modern Authorship: Using Metadata as Historical Record”
• Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries, Copenhagen, 2019
  • “Reconstructing Intellectual Networks: From bibliographic metadata to historical material”
• Reconstructing Historical Networks (GHI), Washington DC, 2018
  • “Intellectual and Material Networks in Eighteenth Century Britain: The ESTC as Historic Relic”
• Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society, Glasgow, 2018
  • “Networks of Authorship: A Stylometric Analysis of Sister Peg”
• Computational Methods for Literary-Historical Textual Scholarship, Leicester, 2018
  • “Quantifying the impact of messy data on historical text analysis”
• Hume, Rousseau, History and Method Workshop, Helsinki, 2017
  • “Imagined Histories: facts and conjecture in Rousseau’s political thought”
• European Society for the History of Political Thought, Barcelona, 2016
  • “Rousseau’s Proposals for Poland: A Pragmatic Re-founding”
• Digital Humanities Congress 2016, Sheffield, 2016
  • “Quantitative Text Analysis and Intellectual History”
• DH Benelux, Luxembourg, 2016
  • “Invisible Interpretations: Intellectual History in the Digital Age”
• Rousseau Association and International Adam Smith Society Colloquium, Glasgow, 2015
  • “Actors and Spectators: Rousseau’s responses to self-interest in the eighteenth century”

Selected Conferences and Workshops (Contributing author)

• Neural Information Processing Systems, Vancouver, 2024
  • “Developing an occupational prestige scale using Large Language Models” part of the Socially Responsible Language Modelling Research (SoLaR) workshop (with Robert de Vries and Laura Ruis)
• International Society for the Study of Drug Policy, Lisbon, 2024
  • “International Drug Policy Constellations: Exploring moral content and influences on International Drug Policy at the 2024 Commission on Narcotic Drugs” (with Alex Stevens, Felipe Krause, and Martin Bouchard)
• Society for Social Medicine and Population Health, Glasgow, 2024
  • “Understanding complex research-related relationships in public health: a Social Network Analysis in Medway” (with Maja Niksic, Lindsay Forbes, David Whiting, Kate Day, and Sarah Hotham)
• International Society for the Study of Drug Policy, Montreal, 2024
  • “International drug policy constellations at the 2024 Commission on Narcotic Drugs” (with Alex Stevens and Felipe Krause)
• Association of Education Assessment Europe, Online, 2021
  • “A study of gender, self-perception, and mathematics: The 2020 England, Wales, and Northern Ireland PISA Field Trial”
• International Congress on the Enlightenment, Edinburgh, 2019
  • Participant in “The Digital Eighteenth Century: Directions and Opportunities” roundtable.
• Networking Archives, Cambridge, 2019
  • Participant in AHRC funded workshops and colloquium on social network analysis and historical archives.
• AIUCD, Rome, 2017
  • Organized panel (with Max Kemman): “Reflections on reading history from a distance”
• Trier Digital Humanities Autumn School, Trier, 2015

Awards and Funding

• Research and academic: Co-I on “Co-creating, embedding and acting on research evidence to reduce health inequalities: the Medway Health Determinants Research Collaboration” (2022-2023); University of Kent’s Future Human Seed Funding and follow-up funding (two grants) (2022-23); DH 2019 Best Poster (2019); DHN 2019 Best Paper (2019); University of Helsinki Future Fund (2018); Hulme Completion Grant (2012); The Clarendon Fund (2009-2012); The Hector Pilling Scholarship, Brasenose College, University of Oxford (2009-2012); The Renee Vautelet Prize for Political Science, Concordia University (2007); Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, Concordia University (2007).
• Teaching: LSE Departmental Teaching Excellence Award (2015); Commended Nominee, LSESU Student-Led Teaching Excellence Award (2014, 2015, 2016).

Specialist Training and Skills

• Teaching and assessment: Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (University of Kent); Psychometrics in education assessment (Cambridge Assessment Network); Teacher Training (University of Oxford and LSE).
• Technical: R and Python programming (training from LSE and University of Cambridge); Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods (LSE); Tableau.

Journals and grant organisations peer-reviewed for

• Publications: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities; The American Political Science Review; European Journal of Political Theory; The Journal of Politics; The Journal of Historical Network Research; The International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity; Digital Studies / Le champ numérique; Brill; Helsinki University Press; and others.
• Grants: ESRC; Austrian Science Fund (FWF).