Costas Papadopoulos has joined FASoS as an Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities & Culture Studies. His research spans the development of virtual worlds to interpret societies of the past, to the application of computational imaging to analyse material culture, to the use of digital ethnography to evaluate digital pedagogy and interactive teaching methods. Much of his scholarship focuses on 3D heritage visualisation.
Costas’ work has its roots in archaeology, ethnography, digital humanities, and museum and cultural studies, exploring modelling and representation at the intersections of the physical and the digital. It advances understandings of the experience and perception of heritage; engages with debates on the role of interactive research in digital humanities; explores ways to build epistemological frameworks for multimodal research; and, integrates Arts into STE(A)M learning via socially-engaged research.
Costas specialises in 3D visualisation exploring two related areas: computer reconstructions of archaeological and historical datasets and digital imaging of archaeological buildings and artefacts. More specifically, he has implemented 3D computer graphics to reconstruct built spaces to explore sensory and lived experience in the past. He has been particularly interested in light, an aspect neglected in archaeological narratives about the perception of ancient environments. Costas is also researching the ways that low-cost computational imaging techniques, including photogrammetry, reflectance transformation imaging, and multispectral photography, have revolutionised the study of material culture.
Given that 3D interactive scholarship has never been fully integrated into our research landscape, he is currently researching, as part of the project ‘Scholarship in 3D’ (international consortium), funded by Mellon Foundation, ways to create a new paradigm for reconceiving 3D models as academic outputs, by bringing together 3D researchers and academic presses to establish a publishing cooperative.
Knowledge exchange and public engagement are integral to his work. His recent research focuses on transforming the educational experience and maximizing knowledge flow by repurposing academic work for second level education and intergenerational groups in cultural heritage settings. He is also exploring Design Thinking and the Maker Culture, co-developing teaching modules that foster cross-sectorial curricula by combining entrepreneurship and technology with arts and heritage. This builds on #dariahTeach, a publicly-available, multilingual, community-driven platform for teaching and training materials for the digital humanities that he co-developed.
Before joining Maastricht University, Costas was a lecturer in digital heritage at Maynooth University in Ireland. He holds a PhD in Digital Archaeology and an MSc in Archaeological Computing / specialisation in virtual pasts (with distinction) from the University of Southampton. He studied for a BA in Archaeology and History of Art (with distinction) at the University of Crete in Greece.
