What comes next at Amaranth is both an extension of what we already do and a push into new terrain. These are keys initiatives we’re actively pursuing.
We are working on building a local AI workstation—running large open-weight models trained on data sets we can control. The goal isn’t just a machine: it’s a shared sandbox with documented workflows, so that other humanities faculty can see what AI-assisted research actually looks like and where new methodological questions need to be answered.
We are developing workflows that use AI to handle the tedious technical work of historical map georectification, layer alignment, and feature extraction—without surrendering interpretive decisions to the model. AI does the lift; humanists do the reading. This opens up spatial analysis to researchers who have the questions but not the technical fluency to traverse the many technologies employed for this kind of work.
Humanistic data—maps, timelines, networks, demographic patterns—rarely reaches public audiences in forms that invite engagement rather than mystification. We’re developing visualization approaches designed from the start for general audiences: things you can explore without training, that still carry the interpretive weight of the scholarship behind them.
We are moving toward significantly higher-resolution scanning and higher-quality fabrication—clay and dual-nozzle printing that can reproduce tooling marks, surface texture, and fine detail that standard filament printing flattens out. The difference matters: a reproduction that captures the exact curvature of a vessel or the wear pattern on a tool changes what students and researchers can notice and argue about. As with all our technical work, we’re documenting the scanning and printing workflows so others can replicate and adapt them. That process also surfaces harder questions about reproduction rights, repatriation, and what it means to hold a copy of something whose original has a contested ownership history.
Amaranth has built tools and workflows for open web publishing—now we want more faculty who want to put their scholarship online in durable, scholar-controlled formats: research websites, annotated document collections, interactive exhibits. The work already happening here is a perfect proof-of-concept.
We seek to cultivate institutional partnerships where scanning, analysis, and fabrication serve community needs and research simultaneously. We’re building toward more of these—with archives, K-12 programs, and museums—and hopefully positioning UNM for external funding as an AI-and-cultural-heritage hub.