Grad school boost

As the first student to work in the Digital Scholarship Lab, Amanda Kleintop, ’11, paved the way for future students to gain skills in analysis and data collection. Today, she teaches history at Elon University and leads her own digital humanities program.

“I strive to be the kind of mentor that my professors at Richmond were,” Kleintop said. “I hope that by engaging with community-driven digital research, my students will gain more real-world experience with the digital humanities.”

The DSL, directed by Rob Nelson, now hosts 20 students enriching their academic inquiry beyond the classroom — and picking up new interests in the process. Contributing to these research projects is helping some earn financial support for continuing their studies in graduate school.

This fall, Craig Caudill, ’25, a mentee of Nelson’s, starts a master’s in public health at the University of Michigan on a full scholarship, a path sparked by his honors thesis and work at the DSL.

“My research with Dr. Nelson solidified my interest in social epidemiology,” Caudill said. “It also introduced me to key project collaborators, including Dr. Helen Meier, a social epidemiologist at the University of Michigan.”

Caudill’s thesis studied the impacts of structural racism on health, particularly stroke mortality, using data from the Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory.

“I am incredibly proud to have been a part of students’ intellectual evolution,” Nelson said. “It is critical that we all keep encouraging conversations around our shared history.”

Read more in UR Now about the 100+ 2025 graduates heading to graduate programs.