UCLA has established what it says is the nation’s first independent digital humanities department and will become the first U.S. university to offer a bachelor’s degree in the field, university officials announced Thursday.
The new Department of Digital Humanities will combine the study of the humanities with technology, data science and other disciplines, examining both the impact of digital technology on society and the use of digital tools to study human culture, history and experience, according to the university.
UCLA has offered digital humanities studies for more than 20 years and established its Program in Digital Humanities, a unit of the UCLA College Division of Humanities, in 2010. Initially designed to accommodate about 25 students annually, the program has grown substantially.
More than 200 undergraduates minored in digital humanities during the 2025-26 academic year, making it the largest minor in UCLA College and the second-largest minor on campus, according to the university.
About 750 undergraduate students and more than 30 graduate students took digital humanities courses during the academic year.
“This signals UCLA’s belief not just in the appeal and marketability of digital humanities as an academic major but in its relevance and pertinence to a 21st-century education,” said Dominic Thomas, chair of the new department and UCLA’s Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies.
The department’s courses will cover subjects including artificial intelligence, user experience and design, social media analytics, digital mapping, geographic information systems and the use of 3D modeling to recreate ancient cities.
Thomas said the rapid growth of artificial intelligence has made the department’s work particularly timely.
“We are at a crossroads,” Thomas said. “There is no one subject right now that is more being discussed — in sophisticated terms or lay terms — than questions about AI.”
Todd Presner, a UCLA professor of European languages and transcultural studies who helped lead the effort to establish the department, said humanities scholars can play a role in determining how emerging technologies are developed and used.
“For our society to have technologies that serve humanity and are more just — and not simply designed to generate profits or serve corporate interests — it’s critically important that there are people prepared to steer and steward them responsibly,” Presner said.
The department will begin with about 18 affiliated faculty members whose research ranges from artificial intelligence and social media to algorithms, digital media, data and technology’s impact on everyday life.
Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of UCLA’s Humanities Division, said the department’s interdisciplinary approach will draw on expertise in the humanities, data science, social sciences and information studies.
UCLA officials said courses will be designed for students with varying levels of technical experience and will emphasize both practical technology skills and consideration of the social and ethical implications of digital tools.
“We’re preparing students not just to navigate and use technology ethically but to critically shape it as they move into the workforce,” project scientist and lecturer Wendy Kurtz said.