We are excited to announce the grant advisory board for the DT Heritage Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Heritage Exploratory Research Grant (PA ArCHER Grant). The granting advisory board is comprised of a small group of experts from DT Heritage, Digital Transitions, and RIVER ai, and some of the leading experts in cultural heritage digitization community. This board will oversee the entirety of the grant process for the PA ArCHER Grant project. See more below to learn more about the background of our grant advisory board members.
Meet the board
Todd Swanson | Digital Imaging Manager | J. Paul Getty Trust
Todd is the Digital Imaging Manager for Getty Digital at J. Paul Getty Trust. He strives to help guide, foster, and create sustainable and meaningful data though strategic digitization and digital projects by utilizing and implementing best practices and guidelines, as well as actively exploring new and emerging technologies to help meet the current and future needs of the Cultural Heritage Community.
Bethany Davis | Digital Processing Coordinator Librarian | University of Iowa Libraries
Bethany leads the in-house digitization program, focusing on rare books, special collections, and archival material, at the University of Iowa Libraries. During her seven-year tenure, the program has expanded its staffing, infrastructure, and services while receiving nearly a half-million dollars in grant support for digitization projects. She holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Kent State University. The University of Iowa Libraries system consists of seven libraries, holding more than 5.7 million volumes including more than one million locally digitized items in the Iowa Digital Library and Iowa Research Online. The University of Iowa is one of the nation’s premier public research universities, with 11 colleges offering internationally recognized programs in disciplines ranging from otolaryngology to fiction writing, printmaking to space science, hydraulic engineering to dance. Iowa draws nearly 33,000 students from more than 114 countries and all 50 U.S. states and employs about 29,500 faculty and staff.
Luciano Johnson | Associate Chief Librarian | The Frick Art Collection and Frick Reference Library
Luciano Johnson is the Associate Chief Librarian leading the Preservation, Imaging, and Creative Services cluster at The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library. He has been working in imaging and preservation for over 15 years, including helping to establish an institution-wide digital preservation policy and program, managing digitization and its technical infrastructure, digital asset management, and promoting and providing access to digital collections through technology-driven projects. Most recently, his role has expanded to include leading the graphic design team at The Frick. His primary interest is the intersection of the activities of preservation, digitization, visual design, and technology. In particular, the application of these disciplines in solving the problems of educational and cultural heritage institutions. Currently, he is on the advisory board for an AI and computer vision focused symposium organized by The Frick Art Reference Library and MOMA on the topic of “Technological Revolutions in Art History.”
Doug Peterson | Head of Research and Development | Digital Transitions
Doug is the Head of R+D and Products at Digital Transitions. He has a BS in Commercial Photography from Ohio University and has worked on the technology side of high-end digital imaging his entire career. He is the lead author of the Digital Transitions Digitization Guides, has presented multiple Short Courses at the IS&T Archiving imaging conference, and is Digital Transition’s liaison to the ISO where he works on improving standards for preservation-grade digitization.
Eric Philcox | CEO | DT Heritage
Eric is the CEO of DT Heritage, the service wing of Digital Transitions. He has a BS in Photographic Imaging from Andrews University and managed the Digital Imaging Unit at New York Public Library prior to opening his own digitization company. DT Heritage is a recognized thought leader in digitization workflows, quality control, and project management.
Ankur A. Patel | Co-Founder and Managing Partner | RIVER ai
Ankur is the co-founder and managing partner at River AI Consulting. Formerly, Ankur was the Vice President of Data Science at 7Park Data, a Vista Equity Partners portfolio company. Prior to 7Park Data, Ankur led data science efforts in New York City for Israeli artificial intelligence firm ThetaRay, one of the world’s pioneers in applied unsupervised learning. Ankur began his career as an analyst at J.P. Morgan, and then became the lead emerging markets sovereign credit trader for Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest global macro hedge fund, and later founded and managed R-Squared Macro, a machine learning-based hedge fund, for five years. A graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, Ankur is the recipient of the Lieutenant John A. Larkin Memorial Prize. He currently resides in New York City. His latest work is Hands-on Unsupervised Learning Using Python: How to Build Applied Machine Learning Solutions from Unlabeled Data.
Brady Wilks |Grant Manager | DT Heritage and Digital Transitions
Brady is the acting grant manager for DT Heritage and Digital Transitions. Additionally, he consults on digitization management and contract writing. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the Academy of Arts University where he was later a member of the adjunct faculty. Brady is an artist, author, and educator with over 20 years of photographic experience in historical photographic processes, contemporary art, and digitization. He is the author of many white papers and an Alternative Photographic Process book by Focal Press. For many years he has been managing and leading digitization efforts for private projects and federal contracts. Brady will be serving as the primary point of contact on this grant.