3D Digital Heritage Researcher and Technologist

This project is creating the world’s first open, sustainable, and FAIR-compliant infrastructure for 3D Scholarly Editions. We are looking for an experienced 3D Heritage Researcher with 3D modelling skills and coding knowledge to act as a bridge between humanities and social science researchers, cultural heritage professionals, and software developers.

You will assist with making and refining 3D scholarly models as well as help ensure that the needs of research communities are translated into robust technical specifications and that new infrastructure developments remain grounded in authentic scholarly workflows and requirements.

What you will do.

• Actively develop and participate in co-creation labs, hackathons, training and testing sessions with scholars, GLAM professionals, and educators.
• Translate user requirements into technical specifications and feed findings back into the development cycle.
• Conduct applied research on technologies and platforms: investigate, evaluate, and benchmark emerging 3D web technologies, annotation frameworks, simulation engines, and repository solutions.
• Produce evidence-based recommendations that steer architectural decisions.
• Rapid prototyping of possible 3D viewer enhancements for users to give initial feedback before it enters the development process.
• Assist project partners on 3D heritage workflows, including digitisation, geometric and material model optimisation and troubleshooting.
• Stay current with the rapidly evolving landscape of tools and frameworks such as 3DHOP, ATON, Kompakkt, HBIM, and cloud-based 3D pipelines as well as the use of LLMs both in the coding ecosystem and in 3D workflows.
• Collaborate with a renowned institution on extending an existing toolkit.
• Collaborate with developers to enhance the infrastructure, including assisting with the design of plug-and-play components for 3D model ingestion, quality assurance, versioning, and archiving.

What they ask

• An Advanced degree (MA/MSc or PhD) in the digital humanities, humanities, social sciences, digital heritage, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• At least three years of relevant experience in digital heritage, digital scholarship, research infrastructures, or a closely related area.
• Demonstrable experience with one or more aspects of 3D heritage production, analysis, or interpretation, such as photogrammetry, Structure-from-Motion, laser scanning, 3D modelling, Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM), digital reconstruction, model optimisation, visualisation, simulation, or scholarly interpretation.
• Demonstrable technical knowledge to evaluate and experiment with 3D web technologies, create mock-ups for (elements of) 3D viewers and tools.
• The candidate should be able to discuss technical options and contribute to technical design discussions.
• Experience with relevant technologies or platforms such as JavaScript, Three.js, WebGL, WebXR, Voyager, 3DHOP, ATON, Kompakkt, or comparable solutions.
• Demonstrable experience gathering and analysing user requirements, involving different communities in design or testing processes, and translating research or user needs into specifications for software developers.
• The ability to collaborate effectively with researchers, research software engineers, cultural heritage professionals, educators, students, and institutional partners in multi-partner projects.
• Excellent written and spoken English (minimum C1 level - CEFR).
• The ability to communicate technical and scholarly matters to different audiences, manage concurrent activities, and maintain high standards of documentation and quality.
• Knowledge of Dutch is advantageous but not required.
• Familiarity with open science, FAIR data, repositories, APIs, persistent identifiers, linked data, web annotation standards, paradata, HBIM, or open-source development will be valuable.