Nick Thieberger's home pages

 

Recent work history and projects

2018 - present: Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne

In 2021 I received the the Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) award for Research Partnership and Social Impact.

Co-chair of the conference "Where do we need to go from here? Language documentation and archiving during the Decade of Indigenous Languages" Berlin, 05-07 October 2022

I am a member of the Advisory Board for the True Echoes project (British Library)

Lead CI in the ARC LIEF grant:Nyingarn: a platform for primary sources in Australian Indigenous languages 2021-2024

Lead CI in the ARC LIEF grant: Modularised cultural heritage archives – future-proofing PARADISEC (2022-2024)

Chief Investigator in the Language Data Commons of Australia (LDACA)

Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language

Recipient of a Ludwig Leichhardt-Jubiläumsstipendium from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in November 2012

Deputy Director of the Research Unit for Indigenous Language at the University of Melbourne.

Chief Investigator in the ARC project "Hearing histories of the western Pilbara: an interdisciplinary study of Indigenous songs composed in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the twentieth century and technologies to sustain them into the future" (2015-2019)

(2011-2021) Editor of the journal Language Documentation & Conservation

(2019-2021) Platform Manager for the Social and Cultural Informatics Platform (SCIP) at the University of Melbourne

2014 - 2018 ARC Future Fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne.

2009 - 2014 ARC QEII Fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne.

2013 – Visiting the Linguistics Institute at the University of Cologne as a Humboldt Fellow (April-September).

2008 - 2010 Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.

Founding Project Manager and now Director of PARADISEC (Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures) a project run by a consortium of Sydney University, ANU and Melbourne University which has established an archive of digitised material representing over 500 languages, mainly from the Pacific, PNG and Indonesia, but also from all parts of the world.

From 2004-2007 - ARC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Linguistics & Applied Linguistics at the the University of Melbourne.

I managed the ARC project Ethnographic Eresearch, a collaborative research project working on online annotation of complex linguistic data that resulted in the online system EOPAS.

I have been a consultant on linguistic issues, including Native Title (see for example the judgment in the Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi case, or the judgment in the Single Noongar claim, or Bennell v State of Western Australia [2006] FCA 1243 (19 September 2006), see the report I wrote for that claim) and computer-based linguistic tools (see the CALW dating back to the 1990s).

From 1995 to 1997 I lived in Vanuatu and worked at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre and also helped manage the Pactok e-mail system.

1991-1994 Visiting Research Fellow, Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) an Australian government statutory authority where I also ran the AIATSIS Aboriginal Dictionaries Project (1993-1994).

1987 - 1990 Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre linguist/co-ordinator in Port Hedland, Western Australia.

1985 - 1986 Linguistic project officer with the Institute of Applied Aboriginal Studies (IAAS), Mt.Lawley Campus of WACAE (now Edith Cowan University).

In the early 1980s I worked at the School of Australian Lingustics in Batchelor, NT.

Professional Affiliations

Co-founder of the Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity

Former Secretary and current member of the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities

Former Secretary and current member of the Australian Linguistic Society

Member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

Member of the Foundation for Endangered Languages

Member of the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities

Invited member of The GLOCAL, The Global Council on Anthropological Linguistics

Member of the ISCA-ELRA Special Interest Group on Under-resourced Languages (SIGUL)

Advisor to the Digital Language Diversity Project


Recent Grants

Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) grant of $140,000 to rework the orphaned outputs of the EScholarship Research Centre (in OHRM format) to ensure longevity of this set of material

Language Data Commons of Australia (2024-2028) funds to support creation of textual material in Australian Indigenous languages and Pacific languages ($1,600,000).

Digitization of Reel-to-Reel/Cassette Recordings of Songs, Dances and Stories of Yap State, a grant from UNESCO Memory of the World Asia Pacific USD$5,000

Chief Investigator in the project Modelling Pacific Creoles with DSTG and colleagues at the ANU (2022-2024) ($1.5 million)

Language Data Commons of Australia funds (2022-2024) to support creation of textual material in Australian Indigenous languages and Pacific languages ($400,000).

Modularised cultural heritage archives – future-proofing PARADISEC cultural heritage. (ARC LIEF grant LE220100010, 2022-2024, $620,000)

Nyingarn: a platform for primary sources in Australian Indigenous languages. (ARC LIEF grant LE210100013, 2021-2024, $600,000)

DSTG grant to prepare an audio/textual corpus of Bislama recordings, 2019/2020, $70,000.

Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) $50,000 for the project 'Modularising PARADISEC's catalogue as a model for the data commons' (2019)

Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Legacy Materials Grant titled "Digitisation of North Malaita recordings." £10,000 (2018)

Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Legacy Materials Grant titled "Digitising tapes from Madang, PNG." £10,000 (2018)

Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Legacy Grant titled "Vanuatu Cultural Centre tape digitisation". £8650 (2017)

CI in the ARC grant DP150100094 collaborating with Sally Treloyn and others titled "Hearing histories of the western Pilbara: an interdisciplinary study of Indigenous songs composed in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the twentieth century and technologies to sustain them into the future". $359,489. (2016-2018)

Developing the Vanuatu collection in PARADISEC, Max Planck Institute Jena, (2016) $65,000.

ARC Future Fellowship (FT140100214) titled "Small Stones can break big canoes: Securing records of the world's indigenous languages". (2014-2018) $755,000.

Endangered Archives Programme (UK), $22,000 to digitise 200 tapes from the Solomon Islands Museum (2014)

ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (I am a CI in this $28 million project) (ARC CE140100041) (2014-2025)

ARC LIEF scheme ‘PARADISEC equipment and facilities’ $238,000 (collaborative Sydney and ANU project) (2012)

Australian Research Council – QEII Fellowship ($717,000) titled 'Doing great things with small languages'. (ARC DP0984419) (2009-2014)


Projects I lead or have initiated

Wordgenerator, a way to generate possible words in a language for which there is an existing dictionary: http://paradisec.org.au/wordgen/wg.php

Metadata entry tool https://sites.google.com/site/metadatatooldiscussion/. This has now become Lameta.

Glossopticon: https://glossopticon.com/exhibition.html

Mobile viewer for PARADISEC data: http://www.language-archives.services/about/mobile-viewer

PARADISEC catalog item viewer http://www.language-archives.services/about/nabu-viewer

Raspberry Pi delivery of archival records: http://www.language-archives.services/about/pi

Open Language Archives Community explorer. See what is in OLAC archives by each of the world's languages. See changes in holdings over time: http://www.language-archives.services/olac-explorer/explore-country

OLAC data visualiser see amount of data for each language: http://www.language-archives.services/about/olac-vis

Dataloader - a way to create meaningful collections of files for loading onto a hard disk or Raspberry Pi for delivery in remote areas onto mobile phones: http://www.language-archives.services/about/data-loader

Dictionaries I have assisted with in various capacities

Nafsan, Ngunese, Drehu, Tahitian, Ngarrindjeri, Somali, Kwaio, Gathang, Marquisan, Wik Ngathan


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