History Department Fall 2024 Faculty Highlights
Professor Derek Heng was recently appointed by the Ministry of Education (Singapore) to the Social Science and Humanities Expert Panel. The panel comprises internationally prominent academics and is responsible for assisting the Ministry of Education and the Social Science Research Council in identifying and funding high-quality social science and humanities research that has the potential to contribute to Singapore’s society and economy. Dr. Heng has also been reappointed to the National Archaeology Advisory Panel, Ministry of Community, Culture and Youth (Singapore). The National Panel plays a key role in advising the National Heritage Board on safeguarding measures for Singapore’s archaeological heritage, including legislative amendments to the NHB Act, the development of local expertise in archaeology, managing archaeological resources, and proposed surveys and excavations in Singapore.
Professor Scott Reese has been awarded a two-month Petra Kappert Fellowship at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg, Germany, during May and June 2025. While at the Centre, Dr. Reese will work with a data-linking team to complete the development of the East African Digital Corpus. The Corpus is a digital information system consisting of more than 1,000 digitized Arabic manuscripts and early printed books from coastal East Africa collected by the Mprint project of which Dr. Reese is also a part. This project constitutes the first comprehensive effort to map and digitally conserve the written scholarly traditions of Muslim East Africa. In addition to his work on the Corpus, Dr. Reese will also cooperate with Dr. Hussein Muhammad, head of the Centre’s Visual Manual Analysis team, using machine learning language to better understand the orthographic traditions of East African Arabic and their connections to the wider Muslim world.
