James Baker is Professor of Digital Humanities and Director of Digital Humanities at the University of Southampton.

James is a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and holds degrees from the University of Southampton and latterly the University of Kent.

James started out working on the satirical artist-engraver Isaac Cruikshank and the business of visual satire in late-Georgian London. Whilst he retains a passion for printed images and visual culture, these days he works primarily at the intersection of history, cultural heritage, and digital technologies. His current research examines histories of knowledge organisation and production in twentieth and twenty-first century Britain.

James is also committed to improving research infrastructure and research culture, and in 2025 began work on three major projects:

• The RICHeS funded ‘Coastal and Inland Waters Heritage Science Facility‘.
• ‘Embedding Trust in Evaluation’, funded by the Research England Development (RED) Fund.
• ‘Careers and Skills for Data-driven Research’, a UKRI Digital Research Technical Professional Skills NetworkPlus project.

Previous externally funded research projects have focused on linked data approaches to archival work (‘Beyond Notability: Re-evaluating Women’s Work in Archaeology, History and Heritage, 1870 – 1950′, Arts and Humanities Research Council), legacy descriptions of art objects (‘Legacies of Catalogue Descriptions and Curatorial Voice: Opportunities for Digital Scholarship‘, Arts and Humanities Research Council), the preservation of intangible cultural heritage (‘Coptic Culture Conservation Collective‘, British Council, and ‘Heritage Repertoires for inclusive and sustainable development‘, British Academy), the born digital archival record (‘Digital Forensics in the Historical Humanities‘, European Commission), and decolonial futures for museum collections (‘Making African Connections: Decolonial Futures for Colonial Collections‘, Arts and Humanities Research Council).

Prior to joining Southampton, James held positions of Senior Lecturer in Digital History and Archives at the University of Sussex and Director of the Sussex Humanities Lab, Digital Curator at the British Library, and Postdoctoral Fellow with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. He is a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College, a convenor of the Institute of Historical Research Digital History seminar, a member of The Programming Historian Editorial Board and a Director of ProgHist Ltd (Company Number 12192946), a Hidden REF committee member, and a founding member of the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition.