Hi, my name is Janna Joceli Omena. I am fascinated with digital methods making, innovation and theorization.
I am a digital methodologist and interdisciplinary scholar working as a Lecturer in Digital Methods at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. I am also a member of the Public Data Lab and the Interest Group on Knowledge Graphs at The Alan Turing Institute, and a collaborator with the Digital Methods Initiative.
My work is rooted in understanding the epistemological dimension of AI, web technologies, digital objects, and research software in method design and implementation and their role in research and knowledge production practices.
Photography by Daniele Pizio.
My research delves into the practice and theory of digital methods. I investigate the technicity of computational media from conceptual, technical, and empirical perspectives, using this knowledge to develop accessible and reproducible methodologies. This approach supports collaborations to build research software to analyse visual media content.
I held positions as an invited Research Fellow at the University of Münster,
Department of Communication (2025) and Assistant Professor or Research fellow roles at the University of Warwick (2022-2024), NOVA University Lisbon (2020-2024) and the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) (2021), where I advanced research and teaching in digital methods.
Papers and projects are available on Google Scholar or ResearchGate (some presentations in SlideShare) Find me as @JannaJoceli on Twitter (search also for ‘Omena’) or visit my YouTube research channel.
Pioneering Initiatives in Digital Methods
In 2016, I founded the #SMARTDataSprint in Lisbon, Portugal, leading this initiative for seven years (2016-2023) as the iNOVA Media Lab co-founder member and coordinator of the Social Media Research Techniques Group, at Universidade Nova de Lisboa
In 2019, I edited the first Portuguese book dedicated to conceptual, empirical and critical reflections about digital methods: Métodos Digitais: Teoria-Prática-Crítica and I also taught digital methods at NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS)(2020), King’s College London (2021) and NOVA Social Sciences and Humanities School (2021-22) (NOVA FCSH). To the latter, I created the first-ever courses dedicated to digital methodologies(Introduction to Digital Methods – Using vision AI to study collections of images) and Platform and Social Media Studies.
In 2025, I led a collaborative initiative and hybrid event about Discussing Digital Methods in Brazil, opening methods discussion and kicking off a Brazilian network in the field (github: https://github.com/jannajoceli/digital-methods-brazil, call for participation: https://kingsdh.net/2025/01/27/hybrid-round-table-digital-methods-in-brazil-fostering-dialogue-and-connection/, video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weX5GwUewEs).
Janna Joceli Omena 