Biography
Gerhard de Kok is the Data Curation Team Lead in the Data & Collections department. Together with his team, he supports academic research, particularly in the collection, cleaning and analysis of datasets. He also conducts historical research within the Huygens Institute. De Kok has a background as a maritime historian and business economist. He obtained his PhD in 2019 from Leiden University with a thesis on the local economic effects of the transatlantic slave trade on Walcheren (1755–1780). He subsequently worked for various KNAW institutes (KITLV, IISG, Huygens) and Leiden University.
In his data work, De Kok supports researchers in applying machine learning to research, implementing Linked Open Data and enriching research data. For instance, he is actively involved in applying handwriting recognition and the automatic extraction of structured data from source material. He is also involved, on behalf of the Huygens Institute, in the Dutch Maritime Sources Network, a partnership with heritage institutions aimed at making maritime heritage accessible online in a modern way.
As a researcher, De Kok is involved in various projects on colonial and maritime history. In addition, he is responsible for the day-to-day management of the HEAT project on historical energy transitions and historical climatology. In this project, we explore the Huygens Institute’s digital collections for insights into energy, weather and climate.
