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Cambridge Language Sciences

Interdisciplinary Research Centre
 

Research

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC-funded project 'PaganTibet' at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). I completed my BA in the Study of Religions and History at SOAS and earned my MPhil and DPhil in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies/Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford. My doctoral research focused on the auto/biographical writings of the Tibetan Buddhist master Sumpa Khenpo Yeshe Paljor (1704-1788), exploring his life and work amidst significant political changes and their effects on the intricate social, intellectual, and political networks of the time.

After my doctoral studies, I held a postdoctoral position in the ‘TibSchol’ project at the OeAW. There, I worked on developing digital resources, including Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) models for Tibetan cursive scripts and a prosopographical database. In my current role at EPHE, I focus on digital humanities and NLP, including HTR and automatic speech recognition (ASR).

I am also a co-founder of the Oral History of Tibetan Studies (OHTS) project at the University of Oxford, which collects and preserves interviews with key figures in the field. Additionally, I serve as a board member and editor-in-chief for Central and South Asia at The Digital Orientalist, an online publication focused on the integration of Digital Humanities in research on Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Publications

Key publications: 

Griffiths, R. M. (2024) “Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) for Tibetan Manuscripts in Cursive Script,” Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines 72, pp. 43-51. https://archivenepal.s3.amazonaws.com/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/ret/pdf/ret_72_03.pdf

Griffiths, R. M. (2024) “Beyond Fact and Fiction: Towards a Multifaceted Understanding of Tibetan Autobiography,” in Chaturvedi, M (ed) Life Writing, Representation and Identity: Global Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 63-78.

Hugon, P. and Griffiths, R. (2024) “TibSchol HTR tools,” Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10451396

Griffiths, R. M. (2022) “Transkribus in Practice: Abbreviations,” The Digital Orientalist. https://digitalorientalist.com/2022/11/01/transkribus-in-practice-abbreviations/

Griffiths, R. M. (2022) “Transkribus in Practice: Improving CER,” The Digital Orientalist. https://digitalorientalist.com/2022/10/25/transkribus-in-practice-improving-cer/

Griffiths, R. M. (2021) “Memory, Politics, and Peace in the Autobiography of Sumpa Khenpo,” in Galli, L., Erhard, F. X. (eds.) The Selfless Ego: Configurations of Identity in Tibetan Life Writing. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 151–169.

Ford, R., Griffiths, R. M., Sehnalova, A. and Wojahn, D (2021) “Glimpses of The Oral History of Tibetan Studies,” Buddhist Studies Review 38(2), pp. 253-264. http://doi.org/10.1558/bsrv.21197

Affiliated researcher
Rachael Griffiths

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Cambridge Language Sciences is an Interdisciplinary Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. Our virtual network connects researchers from five schools across the university as well as other world-leading research institutions. Our aim is to strengthen research collaborations and knowledge transfer across disciplines in order to address large-scale multi-disciplinary research challenges relating to language research.

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