The Institute for Spatial History Innovation (ISHI) advances historical spatial knowledge through four core pillars of activity:
- Publishing structured data and scholarship about global historical geography.
- Developing and maintaining infrastructure to link and integrate information about historical geography.
- Promoting digital justice and reparation in the spatial history domain.
- Building a scholarly network to advance education and critical engagement with spatial history methodologies for researchers and educators across diverse fields.
Interested in working with us? Learn more about what ISHI can do for you!
Professor Ruth Mostern is the inaugural director of the Institute for Spatial History Innovation and Dr. Alexandra Straub serves as ISHI’s Assistant Director. ISHI collaborates with Dr. Stephen Gadd, Technical Director and Lead Developer of the World Historical Gazetteer.
The flagship project of ISHI is World Historical Gazetteer (whgazetteer.org) (WHG). The World Historical Gazetteer is a platform for linking records about historical places, allowing people to make spatial connections across time and language.
Building on Professor Mostern’s two decades of accomplishment as a spatial history leader and scholar, ISHI is positioned for global visibility and for supporting collaborators at Pitt and in the local community. We are doing so by producing authoritative historical place name datasets and curated place collections using the World Historical Gazetteer platform; by supporting the development of other digital atlas projects and spatial history software; by publishing peer-reviewed books and articles that present research findings and insights; and by training students, educators, and researchers through workshops, instructional sessions, and public presentations on spatial history methods.
The Institute for Spatial History Innovation is a part of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and has close ties to the Department of History. In alignment with its commitment to global spatial history, ISHI maintains strong connections with the World History Center and the University Center for International Studies, fostering collaboration across global and interdisciplinary initiatives. ISHI also collaborates with the Responsible Data Science at Pitt, reflecting a shared commitment to responsible and just use of digital data. The Center for Research Computing and Data supports the World Historical Gazetteer by providing a high-performance server environment. ISHI also maintains a connection with the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, grounded in a mutual interest in examining the dynamic interactions between people, place, and the environment. Please contact ISHI@pitt.edu if you are interested in discussing a collaboration.