Jonathan Scott Enderle, PhD’11, a former digital humanities specialist at Penn Libraries, died on September 11. He was 42.

Dr. Enderle received his bachelor’s degree at Texas A&M, then came to Penn as a graduate student in the English department in 2004 and eventually received his PhD in 2011. His dissertation, “Novel Properties: Communication, Copyright, and the British Novel, 1710-1774,” explored the history of ideas about intellectual property and its impact on the eighteenth-century novel. 

After graduating from Penn, Dr. Enderle ac- cepted a position as a visiting assistant professor of English at Skidmore College, where he taught for four years. He then returned to Penn to ac- cept a position as digital humanities specialist, a newly created position in the Price Lab for Digital Humanities. As the University’s first DH special- ist, Dr. Enderle played a major role in shaping both the research program and the curriculum in digital humanities at Penn. His depth of historical knowledge made him an important resource for scholars in the History of Material Texts group, the English department, and the Price Lab. He had a guiding hand in a wide variety of DH projects, all of which focused on the history of the book or involved techniques of text mining, machine learning, or data visualization.

Dr. Enderle’s interest in the communication of ideas was at once scholarly and practical. He was a teacher of Python and other computing languages with a willingness to explain how a given command or syntax had shifted over time. His interest in scalar analysis extended to the history and shape of both texts and languages, and he was one of the principal architects of the DH minor program in the College of Arts and Sciences. As lecturer in digital humanities in the department of English, Dr. Enderle developed Penn’s first Introduction to Programming in the Humanities, later named Data Science for History and Literature. Dr. Enderle is fondly remembered among his students and colleagues as a devoted mentor and a skilled teacher.

He is survived by his wife, Rachael; son, James; and his parents. There will be a colleague memorial service held Thursday, October 21, from 3-5 p.m. on the Penn Museum roof deck, third floor. Click here for more information. A larger, more formal event involving Dr. Enderle’s family will likely take place in the spring.