Dr Lisa Otty (MA, MSC, PhD)

Head of Data-Led Methods and Research Technology

  • Edinburgh Futures Institute

Contact details

Address

Street

3.05 56 George Square

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9JU

Biography

Background

I lead the Edinburgh Futures Institute's work on Innovation and Data skills and Methods, with oversight of CPD and Exec Ed offers.  My role includes leading a team that provides  specialist support for data-led and applied computational methods across the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.  As part of the EFI Executive team, I am responsible for strategic direction and operations.

Since completing my PhD in 2009, I have held a variety of roles in Higher Education, both professional and academic. Between 2019 and 2026, I established and led the Centre for Data, Culture & Society, an investment of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences designed to build capacity in digital research.  Prior to that I worked in research adjacent roles within Information Services Group, and EDINA. 

I have also held short-term teaching posts at University of Dundee and in Digital Humanities in the School of Languages, Literature and Cultures. These followed some postdoctoral projects including an AHRC fellowship at the Centre for the History of the Book.  and an AHRC-funded Postdoctoral Research Fellowship on the project Poetry Beyond Text: Vision, Text and Cognition at the University of Dundee.

 

Research summary

Professional Articles

  • Little, Hayes, Baker and Otty et al. Interpreting UKRI Environmental Sustainability Guidance for the Digital Humanities (v2.1) March 2026 https://zenodo.org/records/19001739 
  • Baker, Otty, Walton, Ohge. DHCC Project Self-Assessment Tool (v1.0)  https://zenodo.org/records/19004251 March 2026, 
  • Otty, L & L. Michielin, ‘Interdisciplinary by Design: The Centre for Data, Culture, & Society Training Programme’ Teaching Programming Across Disciplines, Eds. B. Blankinship et al.  https://teaching-programming.github.io/book/ April 2026.
  • Center for Data, Culture & Society Annual Reports 2019 – 2026 (e.g. https://zenodo.org/records/5575617); Downloads: 603
  • Beavan et al, Towards a National Research Software Engineering Capability in Arts and Humanities Research: a Roadmap. March 2025. https://zenodo.org/records/15083396 
  • Baker, et al.  (2022). A Researcher Guide to Writing a Climate Justice-Oriented Data Management Plan (v0.6). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6451499 

  • Black, Suzanne, Cabrera-Lalinde, Isabela, Otty, Lisa, Edgson, Geoffrey, & Andries, Valentina. (2021). Public Engagement, Events & Exhibitions Guidance for Researchers at the University of Edinburgh. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5575572

  • Savadova, Sabina, Black, Suzanne, Andries, Valentina, Otty, Lisa, & Edgson, Geoffrey. (2021). Participatory, Observation & Face to Face Research Methods for Researchers at the University of Edinburgh. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5575562

  • Black, Suzanne, Otty, Lisa, & Edgson, Geoffrey. (2021). Archives, Collections & Access: Guidance for Researchers at the University of Edinburgh. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5575417

  • Burnhill, Peter and Lisa Otty, Is it too late to ensure continuity of access to the scholarly record? Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences: 2015 IATUL Proceedings: Paper 6. Purdue E-Pubs, Purdue. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/iatul/2015/ddp/
  • Otty, L. and Tara Thomson. ‘Data Visualization’ in Research Methods for Digital Humanities: Digital Data Analysis. Eds. G. Griffin & M. Hayler. Edinburgh University Press, 2015.
  • Otty, L. ‘Stewardship and preservation of e-journals: what is the role of the academic library?’ Where is the Library? NOWAL Conference, July 2015, Manchester UK

 

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Chapters

  • ‘Small Press Surrealism: Collaboration, Exchange and the Limited Edition Book’ in The Aesthetics of Matter: Modernism, the Avant-Garde and Material Exchange Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013.
  • “‘An Eccentric Homespun Avant-gardist’: Modernism, Britain and Hugh MacDiarmid”, Avant-garde Centre-Periphery, Eds. Per Backstrom and Hubert Van den Berg. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013.
  • with Andrew Roberts ‘“Dim-conceived Glories of the Brain”: Literature, Science and Ambiguity’ Culture, Theory and Critique, Taylor and Francis (online 14th Dec 2012, print August 2013).
  • with Andrew Roberts, Martin Fischer and Jane Stabler. ‘Space and Pattern in Linear and Postlinear Poetry: Empirical and Theoretical Approaches’ European Journal of English Studies Special Issue: Visual Text No.17 2013.
  • with Andrew Roberts, Martin Fischer and Anna Katharina Schaffner. ‘Creative Practice and Experimental Method in Electronic Literature and Human Experimental Psychology’, Forthcoming in dichtung-digital, special issue on Electronic Literature Communities, Part II (Summer 2012).
  • “I’ll be your mirror: Re-writing Resistance with Andy Warhol.”  Media and Materiality in the Neo-Avant-Garde. eds Jesper Olsson and Jonad Ingvarsson. Peter Lang, 2012.
  • ‘Inhuman Bodies: Humanism, Automatism and Andy Warhol’s a; a novel’ in Interdisciplinary Humanities, Journal of the National Association of Humanities Education. Special Issue: Technoculture. 24.1 (Spring 2007). Lafayette: University of Louisiana.
  • ‘Avant-Garde Aesthetics: Kitsch, Intensity and the Work of Art’ in Litteraria Pragensia 16.32 (December 2006). Prague: Charles University Press.
  • ‘The No Man Show: Technology and the Extension of Presence in the Work of Andy Warhol.’ Published in Esharp: Electronic Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts Review for Post-graduates 5 (Summer 2005) <http://www.sharp.arts.gla.ac.uk/issue5.php&gt; July 2005.

 

Other

  • Review: BOHN, WILLARD. Reading Visual Poetry. Forum for Modern Language Studies 2011; doi: 10.1093/fmls/cqr050
  • “Aesthetic Theory.” Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Literary Theory (Vol. 2: 1966 to the Present). Ed. Robert Eagleston. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009.

 

Art/Curation Writing

  • ‘Incarnations’, & Labels, Special Issue: Materiality and Metaphysics.  Duncan of Jordanstone: Dundee, October 2012
  • Co-editor of & Labels, Special Issue: Materiality and Metaphysics.  Duncan of Jordanstone: Dundee, October 2012.
  • ‘Exhibiting the Written Word’ (Best Practice Document) Edinburgh University / National Library of Scotland, 2011.

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

  • Computational Literary Studies UK (Advisory Board), PI: Bas Groes, Falmouth, AHRC, 2026 - 2027
  • CCP-AH (Advisory Board), PI :Eamonn Bell, Durham, UKRI, 2025 - 2027
  • AI Hums 101: Una Europa (Advisory Board), PI: Cillian Ó Fathaigh 2025
  • Scotland's National Collections and the Digital Humanities, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2014
  • Poetry, Politics and Print, AHRC Early Career Research Fellowship  Centre for the History of the Book, University of Edinburgh, 2012 – 2013 
  • Making Our Connections: Collaboration, Community and the Exhibition of the Written Word, AHRC Research Associate, University of Edinburgh, 2011 – 2012  
  • The Archive of Reading, AHRC Research Associate, University of Dundee, 2011    
  •  Poetry Beyond Text: Vision, Text and Cognition, AHRC Post-doctoral Research Fellow, University of Dundee, 2009 – 2011
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