Dr. Caio DE CASTRO MELLO SANTOS

Caio Mello is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Humanities/Digital History, and integrates the project Impresso – Media Monitoring of the Past II. Beyond Borders: Connecting Historical Newspapers and Radio.

His work lies at the intersection of digital humanities and media studies, employing computational methods to analyse discourses that circulate in the news and on social media. His PhD thesis focused on news media coverage of the Olympic legacy in Brazil and the United Kingdom, with a particular emphasis on how narratives are constructed to criticise or legitimise host cities’ investments in mega-events. His broader research interests include discourse analysis, natural language processing, digital methods, journalism, urban studies, and activism.

At the School of Advanced Study, Caio has been involved in teaching activities, co-leading the course Concepts of Digital Humanities, as part of the School’s doctoral training programme. He has also developed online learning materials for the University of London’s platforms, focusing on methodologies for studying born-digital content.

He has been involved in the organisation of events to foster public engagement, such as the Our Mutual Friend the Machine at the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities. This event invited participants to interact with machine-generated poetry and engage in discussions with writers and experts about the impact of technology on society.

Caio has received four awards from the Brazilian Society of Interdisciplinary and Communication Studies (INTERCOM) for his work on TV and Narrative Journalism. He also earned the School of Advanced Study prize for best presentation at the Postgraduate Seminar Series (2021 – 2022).

From 2019 to 2023, he was an Early Career Researcher in Digital Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. During this time, he was a visiting fellow at the British Library, where he conducted research on the UK Web Archive. He has also been awarded two research fellowships at the CAIS – Center for Advanced Internet Studies in Bochum, Germany (2018 and 2023). In 2024, Caio served as editor of the Programming Historian in English, contributing to expanding access to learning resources on digital methods in the humanities and social sciences.

Caio holds a PhD in Digital Humanities from the School of Advanced Study, University of London. During his PhD, he was part of the CLEOPATRA project – Cross-lingual Event-centric Open Analytics Research Academy, funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network. He also holds a Master’s degree in Communication and a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, both from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil.