Curriculum Vitae

Education

  • 2013 Ph.D. in History, University of Virginia
  • 2007 MA in History, University of Virginia
  • 2005 MS in Mathematics, University of Virginia
  • 2003 BS in Mathematics and History, College of William & Mary
    • Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude with High Honors

Employment Experience

  • George Mason University, 2018-present
  • Carnegie Mellon University, 2014-2018
  • Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2013-2014
  • Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, 2005-2008
  • University of Virginia, 2003-2010

Books

Jessica Marie Otis, By the Numbers: Understanding the World in Early Modern England (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, forthcoming in late 2022 or early 2023).

Articles and Book Chapters

Matt Burton, Matthew J. Lavin, Jessica Otis, and Scott B. Weingart, “Digits: Two Reports on New Units of Scholarly Publication,” Journal of Electronic Publishing 22, no. 1 (April 2020), doi: 10.3998/3336451.0022.105.

Meaghan Brown, Jessica Otis, and Paige Morgan, “Identifying Early Modern Books: Citation Practices in Bibliographic and Early Modern Studies,” Archive Journal (November 2017).

Hannah Rasmussen, Brian Croxall, and Jessica Otis, “Exploring How and Why Digital Humanities is Taught in Libraries,” in A Splendid Torch: Learning and Teaching in Today’s Academic Libraries, edited by John Maclachlan, Christa Williford, and Jodi Reeves Eyre (CLIR, September 2017).

John Ladd, Jessica Otis, Christopher N. Warren, and Scott Weingart, “Exploring and Analyzing Network Data with Python,” Programming Historian (September 2017).

Jessica Otis, “‘Set Them To the Cyphering Schoole’: Reading, Writing and Arithmetical Education, circa 1540-1700,” Journal of British Studies 56, no. 3 (July 2017), doi: 10.1017/jbr.2017.59

Jessica Marie Otis, “‘Sportes and Pastimes, done by Number’: Mathematical Games in Early Modern England,” in Playthings in Early Modernity: Party Games, Word Games, Mind Games, ed. by Allison Levy (Medieval Institute Publications: 2017).

Alison Langmead, Jessica M. Otis*, Christopher N. Warren, Scott B. Weingart, and Lisa D. Zilinski, “Towards Interoperable Network Ontologies for the Digital Humanities,” International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 10, no. 1 (2016): 22-35, doi: 10.3366/ijhac.2016.0157 [*corresponding author].

Christopher N. Warren, Daniel Shore, Jessica Otis, Lawrence Wang, Mike Finegold, and Cosma Shalizi, “Six Degrees of Francis Bacon: A Statistical Method for Reconstructing Large Historical Social Networks,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 10, no. 3 (2016),             http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/10/3/000244/000244.html.

Select Other Publications

Select Grants and Fellowships

  • NSF Science & Technologies Studies Grant, 2021-24
    • Project: Death by Numbers
  • ACLS Digital Extension Grant, coPI Kelly Schrum, Nathan Sleeter, 2020-22
    • Project: World History Commons
  • NEH-ODH Digital Implementation Grant, coPI Lincoln Mullen, 2019-22
    • Project: DataScribe
  • NEH-ODH Digital Implementation Grant, coPI Kelly Schrum, 2018-21
    • Project: World History Commons
  • Berkman Faculty Development Grant, coPI Scott Weingart, 2018-20
    • Project: Bridges of Pittsburgh
  • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant, coPIs Matt Burton, Matt Lavin, and Scott Weingart, 2017-19
    • Project: Digits: a Platform to Facilitate the Production of Digital Scholarship
  • NEH-ODH Digital Implementation Grant, coPIs Christopher Warren, Daniel Shore, 2016-18
    • Project: Six Degrees of Francis Bacon
  • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Microgrant, coPIs Meaghan Brown, Paige Morgan, 2015-16
    • Project: A Text By Any Other Citation: Identifying Early Modern Printed Books

Recent/Upcoming Public Papers and Presentations

  • “DataScribe: Transcribing Structured Historical Data,” with Megan Brett, Daniel Howlett, and Greta Swain, Datafication in the Historical Humanities: Reconsidering Traditional Understandings of Sources and Data at the German Historical Institute, December 2021.
  • “Teaching the Early Modern in the Age of COVID-19” roundtable, Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, October 30, 2021 (deferred from 2020 due to COVID-19).
  • “Teaching Early Modern Disease and Disaster in the Digital Era,” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, October 29, 2021 (deferred from 2020 due to COVID-19).
  • “Going Back to the Well: Iterative Approaches to Teaching Global Health using World History Commons OER,” World History Association Annual Meeting, July 9, 2021.
  • “Managing the Digital Backlist: Sustaining, Preserving, and Deleting Old Projects,” Digital Humanities Summer Institute Colloquium, June 15, 2021.
  • “‘For to Avoide Mistaking’: Trust and the Function of Numbers in Early Modern England,” History of Mathematics SIG of the Mathematics Association of America, May 5, 2021.
  • “Funding,” invited talk, Project Resiliency in the Digital Humanities Symposium, University of Victoria, April 22, 2021 (deferred from 2020 due to COVID-19).
  • “Understanding the Life Cycle of Digital Objects,” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, April 15, 2021 (deferred from 2020 due to COVID-19).

For additional, older public papers and presentations, see here.

Professional Affiliations

  • American Historical Association
  • North American Conference of British Studies
  • History of Science Society
  • Renaissance Society of America
  • Sixteenth Century Studies & Conference
  • Association for Computers and the Humanities
  • Council on Library and Information Resources
  • Digital Library Federation