SupervisoryTeam

Supervisor Photo

Meritxell Simon-Martin

Supervisor Details

Email: Meritxell.simon@udl.cat

Organization Type: University

Organization Name: Lleida University

Short Biography: Meritxell Simon-Martin is Ramón y Cajal (RyC) Fellow (2022-2027) in the Department of Education Studies, Lleida University, where she acts as the Principal Investigator of a four-year (2023-2027) state-funded project (PID2022- 138056NA-I00): “The cursillos de selección profesional public examinations (1931-1936): a comparative gender study of teacher education during the Second Spanish Republic (CuSePro)”. The project gathers 18 researchers from 10 Spanish universities and 3 researchers from 2 foreign universities. She holds an English BA (UAB, 2004), an MA in British Women’s History (Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2006), and a PhD in History of Women’s Education (Winchester University, 2012). Former Marie Curie Fellow in the Department of Humanities, Roehampton University, in the past 11 years she has been appointed lecturer and/or researcher in several universities abroad (Brasilia, Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, Toulon, Rennes 1, Le Mans).

Co-Supervisor Photo

Lorenzo Quirós Díaz

Co-Supervisor Details

Email: lquiros@transkriptorium.com

Organization Type: Non-academic institution

Organization Name: TranSkriptorium AI, S.L

Short Biography: Lorenzo Quirós holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Universitat Politècnica de València (2022). He is now pursuing a Master's Degree in Project Management. From 2011 to 2015, he worked at Intel Corporation as a development engineer on VLSI design for GPUs. Since 2022, he has been engaged in R&D at tranSkriptorium AI, focusing on document processing. As part of his research activity, he has published several works in conferences and journals in the field of handwritten document processing (HTR, DLA, PrIx), and has contributed to various international (READ, HOME) and national (CARABELA, DoCTIUM, HisCLima) projects related to this field. He has been dedicated to the development and implementation of cutting-edge Machine Learning techniques for document layout analysis, as well as for handwritten text recognition and indexing. Additionally, he co-supervises a PhD thesis in handwritten document processing at Universitat Politècnica de València.

Added Value: Lorenzo will provide his expertise in the field of handwritten text recognition, in which he obtained his own PhD, and is currently supervising a PhD student. Also, he and his Transkriptorium team will offer all the required training and resources to enable the PhD candidate to gain a comprehensive understanding of the processes, advantages, and disadvantages of handwritten text recognition, probabilistic indexing, and similar techniques that facilitate access to information written in physical documents.

Other Co-Supervisor Photo

Roberto García González

Other Co-Supervisor

Email: roberto.garcia@udl.cat

Organization Type: University

Organization Name: University of Lleida

Short Biography: Roberto García is Associate Professor and Deputy Vice-rector for Knowledge Transfer at Universitat de Lleida, Spain. He is also a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications. Roberto has more than 20 years of experience in research and innovation applying semantic technologies in different domains, especially in connection with knowledge and media management. More recently, he is exploring Web 3 as a combination of semantic and decentralization technologies like blockchain. For instance, applying Web 3 to facilitate social media monetization using Non-Fungible Tokens whose terms are modeled utilizing a copyright ontology; and applying Web3 to guarantee data sovereignty through data spaces, especially in agriculture.

Added Value: Roberto will contribute to the PhD scheme with more than 20 years of experience in research and development in connection with representing knowledge using Artificial Intelligence techniques and making it accessible through engaging end-user experiences. Moreover, he has already supervised 4 PhD in related topics, with 3 more PhD theses under supervision. Roberto is a member of the GRIHO (Human-Computer Interaction and Data Integration) research group, made up of 15 PhDs (10 of them full time) and 8 PhD students. The candidate will be a member of this research group, also part of the UdL PhD Programme “Engineering and Information Technology”, where the PhD candidate will be enrolled. This doctoral training will be complemented by actions at DIDPATRI and other foreign universities and archival institutions.

ResearchGroup

Description: “Didactics, Heritage and Museography” (DIDPATRI - UB) designs knowledge transfer collaborations with local emerging cultural industry companies and public administrations. It does so within 4 research axes: Cultural Heritage Studies; Museography; Formal Education; and Digital Scholarship (cf. next section). Established in 1995, the group was officially recognized by the UB in 2000 (UB- 3337; UB-003930) and has since 2005 been incorporated into the “Quality Groups” conceded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (2005SGR00621; 2009SGR00245, 2014SGR945, 2017SGR550; 2021SGR01101). It consists of 17 members (1 professors, 2 RyC, 5 tenured, 3 tenure track, 1 Serra Húnter Fellow, 2 funded postdoc, 2 funded PhD, 1 research assistant). Competitive funding includes (selection): 1 ERC Advanced Grant, 2 Recercaixa, 1 FBBVA, 1 Challenge Investment Fund, 1 AGAUR, 3 Erasmus +, 1 H2020 SC7- Security, 4 I+D+I, 1 Maria Zambrano postdoc, and 6 PhD contracts (1 APIF, 1 FPI, 3 FI, and 1 La Caixa INPHINIT Retaining). N.B. The PhD candidate will be enrolled in the UdL research group GRIHO

ResearchLine

Description: The research line will consist of designing a Public History digital archive user experience for the project “The Lleida Teacher Education College Holding (1840-1951): A Digital Humanities project” (LleidaDH). Targeted to amateur/professional historians and the general public (specially at a local level – cf. next section), the interface will be underpinned by the following rationale: • To digitize records, create digital assets, and produce metadata and descriptions for subsequent computational processing and distant reading: data mining, statistical analysis, textual analysis, topic modelling, visualization, network analysis, etc. • To design an interactive, participative, and (gender) inclusive user experience that permits end users to enrich our digital archive in the form of crowdsourcing, oral interviews, sharing private history of education related items, etc. • To offer an accessible, sustainable, interoperable and integrated interface in line with FAIR principles and ISO 15489 and ISO 30300 norms. • To design a data modelling that involves an epistemological/methodological reflection on the criteria used for datafication and description. • To provide a data ethics statement (intellectual property, privacy, ownership, security) a digital labour ethics statement (roles, responsibilities, credits, intellectual property). • To include an explicit and open documentation of our project development with a view to (1) guiding future team members and (2) contributing to Digital Scholarship.

Others

Description: The PhD research line contributes to Sustainable Goal 9 of the MSCA Green Charter: building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and fostering innovation. Automatic transcriptions and indexes of handwritten documents, obtained by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning models will be deployed in the PhD line of research. This utilization will be limited to the recognition of handwritten text present in historical documents.

CareerDevelopment

Objectives

  • Future postdoc employment at the University
  • Increased employability in the non-academic sector
  • International mobility
  • Building collaborative networks
  • Trainings to enhance career opportunities
  • Application of postdoctoral grants (MSCA, Juan de la Cierva, etc.)
  • Involvement in teaching, supervision, or mentoring

Expected Outputs

  • PhD defense
  • Application of grants (MSCA, Juan de la Cierva, etc.)
  • Publication of articles
  • Developing new products, solutions, or services
  • Attendance to international conferences

Training Skills

  • Project Management
  • Time Management
  • Communication to the civil society and public engagement
  • Open Science
  • Gender and diversity dimension of research
  • Ethics and Research Integrity
  • Teaching
  • Supervision
  • Policy making, such as Green Deal and sustainable practices
  • Intellectual Property
  • Research Valorization
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Leadership
  • Training for job interviews, CV writing
  • Advanced Digital Skills
  • Responsible use of Artificial Intelligence
  • Spanish
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