Dean Rehberger does digital history at Michigan State University, where he serves as Associate Professor in the Department of History. His career has been built on constructing digital infrastructures for research, with particular emphases spanning digital history, GLAM stewardship, and the semantic web. Rehberger’s current research interests are AI, Knowledge Graphs, and Semantic Web.
After nearly two decades of leadership, Rehberger stepped down from his role as Director of Matrix: The Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences in 2025, with Walter Hawthorne assuming directorship. During his eighteen years at the helm, Rehberger helped to transform Matrix into an internationally recognized research center, overseeing numerous digitization and archival projects while building globally-networked resources for humanities and social sciences (greatly aided by an amazing research staff at matrix, and a great many scholars and partners).
Through Matrix, Rehberger has led or co-led multi-institutional projects that have helped to rethink data practice in the humanities. His most significant contribution remains Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade (Enslaved.org)—a Mellon-funded, university-hosted platform that aggregates people-, place-, and event-level records across the Atlantic world. This groundbreaking database serves as a discovery hub for information about enslaved people and their captors, providing access to over a million people records and five million data points. The project originated from earlier work on Slave Biographies: The Atlantic Database Network, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 201.
Rehberger’s other major projects demonstrate his commitment to preserving America’s cultural heritage through digital means. He co-directed the Institute of Museum and Library Services initiative Oral History in the Digital Age, which established technical and ethical guidelines for collection, curation, and access of oral histories. This comprehensive project brought together experts from museums, libraries, and scholarly societies to develop best practices for digital oral history across all phases of the process.
The National Endowment for the Humanities-funded What America Ate project represents another significant achievement in Rehberger’s portfolio. Working with food historian Helen Zoe Veit and libraries specialist Peter Berg (and the staff at Matrix), he helped create an interactive website and online archive documenting American food culture during the Great Depression. The project digitized thousands of WPA America Eats materials, community cookbooks, and food advertising from the 1930s, making these rare historical documents accessible to researchers and the public.
Rehberger’s methodological innovations have moved humanities cyberinfrastructure toward linked open data and knowledge graph architectures. Enslaved.org exemplifies this approach, engineered as a graph-based hub using Wikibase and Blazegraph with an openly documented ontology. The project team has published design methods for the Enslaved.org knowledge graph, detailing provenance, schema choices, and materialization pipelines.
Since 2020, Rehberger and colleagues at Matrix have extended this work into geospatial knowledge graphs through his role as co-PI on KnowWhereGraph (KWG)—an NSF Convergence Accelerator project building a large-scale, cross-domain, FAIR, “AI-ready” geoknowledge graph to link human and environmental data for decision-support. This $5 million project creates tools that enable GeoEnrichment—the process by which data becomes augmented with auxiliary information tailored to geospatial study areas. The KnowWhereGraph contains over 12 billion information triples supporting scenarios in disaster relief, agricultural land use, and food-related supply chains.
Rehberger has published on digital humanities methodology and practice. His work appears in venues ranging from the Journal of Digital Humanities to conference proceedings at major international gatherings [25][26]. His publications include collaborative pieces on KORA, Matrix’s digital repository and publishing platform, and contributions to edited collections on digital decision simulations and oral history in the digital age. He has presented his research at conferences worldwide, from wonderful venues like the Digital Humanities Institute at Hamilton College to international symposia on digital humanities theory and practice.
His commitment to open-source development and collaborative partnerships has distinguished Rehberger’s approach throughout his career. Matrix operates using inexpensive hardware and open-source software to facilitate collaboration with developing countries and partners with limited resources. The center has partnered with external organizations including museums, libraries, and archives to digitize collections of cultural resources significant for public access and education.
Currently, Rehberger is developing a cultural history of AI with particular focus on the idea of the mechanical brain. This research direction builds on his established expertise in AI applications for historical research, documented through his “Artificial Historian” venue and public scholarship tracking the methodological frontier of AI in historical research.
Rehberger’s scholarly trajectory reveals a consistent methodological through-line: designing interoperable, provenance-rich data that historians, communities, and machines can reason over; building open, maintainable services; and publishing the schemas and practices that make reuse possible. This program—visible in Enslaved.org’s LOD stack and the geospatial scope of KnowWhereGraph—represents his most recent contributions to digital history’s evolving landscape. His work demonstrates how humanistic inquiry can leverage cutting-edge computational approaches while maintaining rigorous scholarly standards and ethical commitments to the communities whose stories these digital platforms preserve and illuminate.
Press, Podcasts, & Mentions
1. Media Coverage of Enslaved.org and Digital Slavery Databases
Chang, Alisa. “Enslaved.org Shares Lives and Experiences of the Enslaved.” NPR, December 9, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/09/944739710/enslaved-org-shares-lives-and-experiences-of-the-enslaved.
Highlights the launch of Enslaved.org and its role in sharing personal stories of enslaved people.
Contreras, Russell. “First Look: Slavery Ancestor Project Expands.” Axios, December 1, 2020. https://www.axios.com/slavery-ancestor-project-to-expand-d73563bd-123f-420b-b45b-c873757007cc.html.
Announces the expansion of the Enslaved.org database to include more global data.
Ford, Christiana. “Michigan State University Helps People Learn about Slavery and Family History.” WILX, December 4, 2020. https://www.wilx.com/2020/12/04/michigan-state-university-helps-people-learn-about-slavery-and-family-history/.
Local coverage of MSU’s contribution to public history and genealogy through Enslaved.org.
Graham, Tia. “Michigan State University Launches Online Database Chronicling North-Atlantic Slave Trade.” WDET, December 30, 2020. https://wdet.org/posts/2020/12/30/90422-michigan-state-university-launches-online-database-chronicling-north-atlantic-slave-trade/.
Radio coverage of MSU’s launch of Enslaved.org as a major research tool.
Inside Edition. “New Website Aims to Preserve History of Slavery with Open-Source Ancestry Database.” Inside Edition, December 3, 2020. https://www.insideedition.com/new-website-aims-to-preserve-history-of-slavery-with-open-source-ancestry-database-63508.
Introduces Enslaved.org’s goals for open-source genealogy and public engagement.
Kyaw, Arrman. “Michigan State University Launches Database of Enslaved Africans.” Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, December 31, 2020. https://diverseeducation.com/article/199997/.
Focuses on the educational and equity impacts of Enslaved.org’s launch.
Muse, Pat Lawson. “News 4 Your Sunday: Enslaved.org.” NBC Washington, February 1, 2021. https://www.nbcwashington.com/community/news-4-your-sunday/news-4-your-sunday-enslaved-org/2557890/.
Broadcast interview introducing the public to Enslaved.org’s mission and uses.
Peet, Lisa. “Enslaved.org Uses Linked Open Data to Connect.” Library Journal, January 21, 2021. https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=enslaved-org-uses-linked-open-data-to-connect-enslavement-records.
Explores how Enslaved.org applies linked data to integrate diverse historical records.
Spowart, Nan. “Researchers Launch Global Appeal to Help Tell Stories of the Slave Trade.” The National, January 3, 2021. https://www.thenational.scot/news/18982523.worldwide-appeal-aid-telling-story-slave-trade/.
Calls for international participation in the digital reconstruction of slave trade histories.
Toussaint, Kristan. “This Massive Database Reveals the Names and Stories behind the History of Slavery.” Fast Company, December 7, 2020. https://www.fastcompany.com/90582344/this-massive-database-reveals-the-names-and-stories-behind-the-history-of-slavery.
Highlights the innovative scale and ambition of Enslaved.org’s design.
Trent, Sydney. “A Massive New Effort to Name Millions Sold into Bondage during the Transatlantic Slave Trade.” The Washington Post, December 1, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/12/01/slavery-database-family-genealogy/.
Describes the humanizing mission of naming enslaved individuals in a global public database.
2. Scholarly and Academic Reviews
Burrows, Toby. “Review: Enslaved.” Reviews in Digital Humanities 5, no. 5 (May 28, 2024). https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/enslaved.
Assesses the scholarly significance of Enslaved.org as a digital humanities project.
Giesemann, Elisabeth. “Stories of the Enslaved Told Using Wikibase.” Wikimedia Diff, February 25, 2021. https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/02/25/stories-of-the-enslaved-told-using-wikibase/.
Explains how Wikibase technology underpins Enslaved.org’s open-data framework.
3. Institutional and University Announcements
Dugger, Brian. “Bound by History: How Michigan State Is Compiling the Global Slave Trade’s Paper Trail.” Toledo Blade, March 11, 2018. https://infoweb-newsbank-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/apps/news/document-view?p=AWNB&docref=news/16AD2DEAEF149CC0.
Details Michigan State University’s work in gathering archival records to map the slave trade.
Huhn, Diane. “KnowWhereGraph: Enriching and Linking Cross-Domain Knowledge Graphs Using Spatially-Explicit AI Technologies.” MSU Today, November 24, 2020. https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2020/knowheregraph.
Outlines MSU’s KnowWhereGraph project, which uses AI to enhance linked data research.
Jones, Briona. “Student View: Preserving History through Matrix.” MSU Today, January 5, 2021. https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2021/student-view-preserving-history-though-matrix.
A student perspective on Matrix’s role in preserving and presenting digital history.
Novak, Dan. “UMD Researcher Co-Leads New Digital Collection Piecing Together Histories of Enslaved Peoples.” MarylandToday, December 1, 2020. https://today.umd.edu/articles/reconstructing-fragmented-lives-88e94570-0f28-4604-ace2-777e74777e37.
Highlights Maryland’s collaboration in developing the database with MSU.
4. Long-Form Journalism and National Coverage
Crawford, Amy. “A Massive New Database Will Connect Billions of Historic Records to Tell the Full Story of American Slavery.” Smithsonian Magazine, January/February 2020. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/massive-new-database-connect-billions-historic-records-tell-full-story-american-slavery-180973721/.
Introduces efforts to create an unprecedentedly large digital resource on slavery’s history.
Roach, John. “Who Were America’s Enslaved? A New Database Humanizes the Lives of Millions.” Smithsonian Magazine, December 11, 2020. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sweeping-new-digital-database-emphasizes-enslaved-peoples-individuality-180976513/.
Highlights Enslaved.org’s emphasis on restoring individuality to enslaved persons in historical records.
Roach, John. “A Massive New Database Will Connect Billions of Historic Records to Tell the Full Story of American Slavery.” Smithsonian Magazine, March 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/massive-new-database-connect-billions-historic-records-tell-full-story-american-slavery-180973721/.
Details Smithsonian’s role in covering the growth of linked slavery databases.
5. Workshops, Webinars, and Oral History Work
Cherry, Kevin, and Kristen Laise. “WebWise 2012: Managing Oral History Collections and Projects.” Engaging Places, April 30, 2012. https://engagingplaces.net/2012/04/30/webwise-2012-managing-oral-history-collections-and-projects/.
Reports on WebWise 2012 and innovations in managing oral history collections.
6. Foundational and Early Coverage
Bajak, Aleszu. “How a Massive Database Could Help People Find Their Enslaved Ancestors.” PBS NewsHour, January 19, 2018. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-a-massive-database-could-help-people-find-their-enslaved-ancestors.
Explains how new digital databases could assist descendants in tracing enslaved ancestors’ lives and movements.
Shivni, Rashmi. “How a Massive Database Could Help People Find Their Enslaved Ancestors.” PBS NewsHour, January 19, 2018. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-a-massive-database-could-help-people-find-their-enslaved-ancestors.