Ryan Cordell

Ryan Cordell is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an affiliated faculty member in the Department of English. He is also a Core Founding Faculty Member of the NULab for Digital Humanities and a Senior Fellow at the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Critical Bibliography. His research focuses on how technologies shape textual circulation, with a specialization in 19th-century American newspapers and computational methods. Cordell co-leads the Viral Texts project, which uses data mining to trace text reuse in historical archives. He previously directed the Huskiana Experiential Letterpress Studio at Northeastern University.

Education: PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Virginia (2010).

Research Interests: Digital humanities, textual analysis, history of print culture, computational social science, and cultural analytics. His work bridges literary studies, media history, and information science to explore how texts circulate and gain authority through networks.

Awards & Honors:

• ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowship (2015-2016)
• NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant (2013-2014)
• Outstanding Teaching Award, Northeastern University (2014-2015)
• Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Critical Bibliography (2013-2016)

Advising & Grants: Served as Project Director for multiple grants, including a Mellon Fellowship and NEH funding. Advises on interdisciplinary projects combining humanities and computational methods.

Labs & Collaborations: Leads the Viral Texts initiative and collaborates with scholars in History, Computer Science, and Library Science. Affiliated with the NULab for Digital Humanities, focusing on computational social science and digital scholarship.