Dirk Wintergrün

Dirk Wintergrün’s research focuses on semantic modeling, network analysis, and text mining tools employed to analyze historical data. The concept of socioepistemic networks serves as the theoretical framework and aims to describe and analyze the dynamics of knowledge formation by applying methodologies from network theory and graph theory. The application of network theory is closely connected with a precise description of the underlying data. His work combines the semantic modeling of data with the representation of data as graphs, which bridges these usually unconnected fields from the theoretical analysis of complex structures.

In this context, Dirk is working on case studies for the Research Program on the History of the Max Planck Society (GMPG), specifically on the application of text-mining tools aiming at a structuring of the unstructured text corpus created by the project on the basis of Optical Character Recognition on a large scale, the formation of general relativity as a research field, and most recently on the history of exoplanet research as part of a project funded by the Berliner Zentrum für Maschinelles Lernen (BZML).

Dirk is developing, coordinating, and managing digital projects that support research in the history of science. In particular, he is involved in designing and implementing a large variety of digital projects currently curated by the Max Planck Institute of the History of Science. In addition, his work involves the design of databases and service development.