Faces of the C²DH: Sarah Oberbichler

From archives to algorithms: advancing AI at the C²DH

Sarah Oberbichler joined the C²DH in January 2026 as Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining in Digital History, and she hit the ground running.

“It has been a very intense first few months,” Oberbichler admits. “But it’s good to be part of the team straight away, sharing new ideas. We have so many topics we can work on together.”

Her first months on the job have included organising AI working group meetings together with Frédéric Clavert, with a special focus on AI and interpretation; applying for project funding; and kicking off the AI flagship programme on “Intelligent Heritage” with Tugce Karatas, a research scientist and Head of the Digital Research Infrastructure, in close collaboration with the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture. One of her first initiatives also included organising the centre’s computing resources to support the use of small and local AI models in humanities research. In February, she and several colleagues presented at the IAMHIST symposium, which focused on how AI intersects with media production and historical practice, and in March she led a workshop with C²DH doctoral researcher Lauren Coetzee in Mainz, Germany, to explore the use and fine-tuning of local models. Meanwhile, she has also been co-organising the AI through History, History through AI event, set to take place on 15-16 June 2026. Oberbichler will open the conference alongside C²DH Director Andreas Fickers, assistant professor/senior research scientist Frédéric Clavert, and Daniel Burckhardt from the German Historical Institute (GHI) Washington. Oberbichler will also chair the first keynote with a focus on AI literacy and the (new) skills historians need.

‟ It’s good to be part of the team straight away, sharing new ideas. We have so many topics we can work on together”

Assist. Prof Sarah OBERBICHLER

Assistant professor in Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining in Digital History

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A lucky transition to AI and digital humanities

Originally from South Tyrol in northern Italy, Oberbichler studied history and German language and literature at the University of Innsbruck in Austria and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She had planned to become a teacher, even spending a year working at a secondary school, but she decided instead to embark on doctoral studies at the University of Innsbruck and the University of Minnesota, earning a PhD from the former in 2019 in the field of migration history and digital media.

Through her research in these areas, Oberbichler began to develop an interest not just in qualitative approaches but also in computational methods for qualitative research. Until her Master’s, she would have described herself as a “traditional historian”. But she has always been interested in studying narratives and discourses using large-scale sources such as historical newspapers. “Studying those sources means you deal with scale. And dealing with scale at some point means dealing with computational methods, so this was quite a logical step.”

© Alex Rumford – School of Advanced Study – University of London

It was Oberbichler’s Master’s supervisor who encouraged her to pursue a PhD, based on the work she had done for her dissertation, which involved computational methods like coding. For Oberbichler, it was a good fit: working with a large newspaper corpus and analysing large datasets while at the same time not wanting to lose sight of the qualitative aspects of the research forced her to consider how she could combine both – which, in turn, “was the start of my whole journey of doing computational qualitative data research”.

Oberbichler took the proactive step of learning Python before the AI explosion. Her return from one and a half years of maternity leave to start a postdoctoral position at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz, Germany, coincided with a pivotal moment, namely the sudden rise of generative AI. Sometimes, being in the right place at the right time – and seizing the opportunity when changes happen – can really matter. Oberbichler does not see AI as replacing the work of historians; rather, it’s a means of scaling up research. She has used AI to analyse thousands of documents and examine how societies have recovered from natural disasters.

Settling into Luxembourg and the C²DH

The experience of settling into Luxembourg has been positive for her, and she has found it easier to adapt than when she moved to Germany. This is partly because of Luxembourg’s international and welcoming nature, and also because of the support she has received in her new role. Oberbichler already spoke several languages, but she has made efforts to learn French and understand Luxembourgish. She even had a surprising moment during a conversation with a fellow South Tyrolean in their local dialect, when a Luxembourger commented on how similar some expressions sounded to Luxembourgish.

Although she joined the C²DH in January 2026, it wasn’t the first time she had visited the centre, as she had previously taken part in workshops related to the “Impresso – Media Monitoring of the Past” interdisciplinary research project and was a visiting researcher for two months in 2025. But she says it felt like “a dream come true” when she began working at the centre, in part because of its unique “thinkering” philosophy but also because she appreciates how the C²DH’s approach of combining traditional and digital methods very much aligns with hers.

Oberbichler is interested in the development of frameworks for the responsible use of AI. Although she is concerned about the “black box” nature of AI and the need for researchers to maintain control over their own critical thinking, she has enjoyed reflecting with colleagues on best practices for how to document and ensure the transparency of AI-assisted research.

Looking ahead, Oberbichler wants to help foster AI literacy amongst the next generation and is planning a winter semester course to teach students how to “think algorithmically” and navigate technology. She is also expanding her research on environmental history, including a new focus on Africa and the study of climate shocks through historical travel accounts.