Patrik Svensson
Basic facts
Born: November 23, 1970
Place of birth: Sollefteå
Ph.D. in (English) linguistics
Current position: Director, HUMlab, Umeå University. Professor/Chair in the humanities and information technology.
Chronology
1989-1992 Undergraduate studies in informatics, Scandinavian languages, literature and English at Umeå University.
1992 Start of graduate studies in English linguistics. Supervisor: Gunnar Persson.
1996-1997 Visiting scholar at Berkeley.
1998 Ph.D. finished.
1999 Senior lecturer position (lektor) at the Department of Modern languages/English at Umeå University. IT coordinator at the department.
1999 Assistant director, HUMlab (with Torbjörn Johansson as the director)
2001 Director, HUMlab.
2002 Senior lecturer in the humanities and information technology
2003 Awarded the Royal Skytteanska Samfundets Prize for young and distinguished researchers in the Humanities.
2004 Appointed Research Associate at the Research Centre for New Media in Language Learning, Monash University, Australia.
2005 One of the executive directors (member of the academic support group) for Wallenberg Global Learning Network II.
2006 One of the two project leaders for a major initiative to develop HUMlab and support research in the Humanities and information technology (USD 1,8 million).
2006 Project coordinator for EU-funded project “Query and context based visualization of time-spatial cultural dynamics” (6th framework IST). Assistant project coordinator: Fredrik Palm (funding from EU: € 1,6 million).
2007 Awarded postdoctoral position as part of university quality based system. Position advertised and external reference group selected candidate: Cecilia Lindhé.
2008 Project coordinator for KK Foundation funded project “YouTube as a performative arena” (2009-2011, 4 million SEK).
2008 Young Researcher Award (Umeå University, 2009-2010)
2009 Docent in the humanities and information technology
2012 Professor/Chair in the humanities and information technology (funded by the Wallenberg Foundation)
Professional interests
Technology and culture, digital humanities, the humanities in the 21st century, interdisciplinary theory and practice, information technology and learning (educational technology), cyberinfrastructure, visualization, computer game studies, critical cyberspace theory, embodiment, virtualization of communication, digitally supported representation, presence, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, dynamic maps.
Activities organized (selection)
Chief responsability and initiator of the HUMlab seminar series (started in 2002). So far about 90 seminars. About half of the seminar speakers international guests (e.g. Brenda Laurel, Katherine Hayles, Mark Stephen Meadows, Howard Rheingold, Henry Jenkins etc.).
Also shared responsibility for the T35 seminar series on educational technology 2001-2002.
Examples of other activities organized:
Symposium on Visualization 2000
Conference on Information Technology and Language Learning 2001
Symposium on Digital Culture 2002
Workshop on Interactive Narratives 2003
Workshop on Next Generation GIS 2003
Series of virtual conferences on IT and language learning 2003
International workshop on Dynamic Maps 2003
Moblogging Jokkmokk 2004
Technological Texture conference, January 2005
Symposium on language learning and technology, May 2005
Workshop on datamining, December 2005 (together with Fredrik Palm)
Talks and presentations
More than 90 talks and presentations since 1999. At Umeå University, other Swedish universities and a range of international universities (e.g. Stanford University, Cornell University, King’s College, Melbourne University, University of Bergen and University of Virginia). Also a great number of presentations of HUMlab and HUMlab. projects over the years.
Externally funded projects
Project leader and/or principal investigator
Virtual weddings and a real wedding of linguistics, cultural studies and literature. (Three-year project financed by the Council for the Renewal of Higher Education). Finished.
Streaming media in language education. Funded by Distum. Finished.
Linguistic consequences of virtualization: Digital English. Financed by Vetenskapsrådet/HSFR.
National network for information technology in academic language learning. Financed by the Net University, the Council for the Renewal of higher education and previously, Riksbakens Jubileumsfond.
Establishing strong research in the Humanities and information technology. Initiative funded partly by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Kempe Foundation. Total funding about USD 1,8 million. Project leaders: Patrik Svensson and Kjell Jonsson.
Query and context based visualization of time-spatial cultural dynamics (6th framework IST, STREP). Assistant project leader: Fredrik Palm. Funding from EU: € 1,6 million.
YouTube as a performative arena. Funded by the KK Foundation. 2009-2011.
Researcher
Computer games as meeting places and fiction: Beyond simulated reality and traditional story-telling. 2003-2005. Financed by Vetenskapsrådet.
Advanced consultant
Virtual theaters in drama education. Financed by Council for the Renewal of higher education.
Information technology and the Humanities in unison. Financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
Other activities
Conference referee and scientific committees
Evalution of project applications for The Council for the Renewal of Higher Education. 2001.
Utvecklingskonferensen. Lund University. 2003
Independent Language Learning: New Research Directions, Open University. 2003.
Committee for Boel Elmroth’s licentiate thesis, Dec 17, 2004.
Evaluations
Evaluation of the EU-funded Lingua2 project “Swedish as a foreign language on the Internet and with tandem learning”. 2004.
Academic “opposition”
Final seminar (“slutseminarium”) for Boel Elmroth, ethnology, in October 2004.
University committees and groups
Steering group for the university wide “applied information technology” initiative (2007-).
The committe for Framework Seven/EU work at Umeå University (2006-)
Internationalization committee, Humanities faculty (2002-)
Research strategy committee, Humanities faculty (2005-)
IT resources/infrastructure group, university level (2004-2005)
Umeå Center for Interaction Technology Faculty (2004-, partial chair 2004-2005)
Reference groups, scientific boards and editorial boards
Reference group for the scriptwriting program, Umeå University.
Reference group for the LIKA project financed by the KK Foundation and run by four Swedish universities. 2006-
Scientific Advisory Board of M3 (Man, Medium, Machine) at Södertörn University College. 2006-
Editorial board, Human IT. 2006-
Media
A number of newspaper, TV and radio appearances. Most recently newspaper articles about the Moblogging Jokkmokk 2004 project, long interview in Västerbottensnytt (Swedish national TV regional channel) and two panel discussions on state TV (the new national Knowledge channel). I hope to have a more complete list here in the future (the HUMlab webpage has a Swedish list of media attention here)
