Ryan Shaw

Dr. Ryan Shaw is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina. His expertise spans knowledge organization, philosophy of information, and digital humanities. He holds a PhD in Information Management & Systems from UC Berkeley, with a Designated Emphasis in New Media (2010), and a B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. Shaw’s work focuses on historical periodization, linked data, and computational methods for organizing cultural heritage materials.

His research includes the PeriodO project (NEH-funded), a gazetteer of historical periods, and the Editors’ Notes initiative (Mellon Foundation), developing collaborative research tools for humanists. He has received grants such as the 2012 IMLS Early Career Development Award for civil rights history digitization projects. His book chapter in The Discipline of Organizing (2014) earned ASIS&T’s Book of the Year award.

Key research areas involve linking open data (e.g., LODE ontology), nanopublications for period assertions, and semantic tools for historical analysis. He explores intersections between information science and disciplines like sociology, philosophy, and archaeology. Shaw’s recent work addresses challenges in temporal modeling, digital epigraphy, and the ethics of computational historiography.

• Grants: IMLS (2012), Mellon Foundation, NEH
• Labs/Teams: PeriodO Project, Editors’ Notes, Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative
• Key Tools: LODE ontology, PeriodO gazetteer

His articles analyze topics like big data’s epistemological implications, collaborative scholarly notebooks, and the socio-technical dimensions of knowledge organization systems. He advocates for open, decentralized approaches to information infrastructure in humanities research.