It’s axiomatic that history is written by the winners.
But what if you were part of a group that was so marginalized by society that you often don’t even make it into the history books?
This is the case for black women, say a group of social science and humanities researchers who are using supercomputers to shine a light in the dark corners of history to find obscure historical records that point to the presence of black women, even when the women themselves were not able to speak for themselves.
I recently sat down with this dynamic group of researchers to talk about their fascinating research and, more broadly, how social scientists are using supercomputers and Big Data to revolutionize humanities research.