Katherine McDonough is a Lecturer in Digital Humanities at the School of Global Affairs, Lancaster University . She specializes in eighteenth-century French history and spatial digital humanities, focusing on historical maps and computational methods for analyzing infrastructure and socio-political reforms. PhD, Early Modern French History, Stanford University (2013) BA, History and French Literature, Johns Hopkins University (2006) Her research bridges Enlightenment history , infrastructure development , and digital methodologies such as computer vision and text analysis. She explores how historical actors contested coercive labor systems and reimagined governance through spatial data. Her recent work includes the MapReader software library (2023 Roy Rosenzweig Prize) and collaborations with the GEODE project in Lyon. She contributes to Living with Machines and Machines Reading Maps , analyzing 57,000 digitized maps. Roy Rosenzweig Prize (2023) Fellow, Royal Historical Society Software Sustainability Institute Fellow Collegium de Lyon Fellowship She co-leads the AHRC-funded Data/Culture project and previously served as UK PI for the AHRC-NEH Machines Reading Maps initiative. Her teaching includes undergraduate courses on eighteenth-century French history and MA-level modules on text/spatial analysis.









