"From Silence to Story: Revisiting Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room through Acoustics and Immersive Storytelling"

Funded by Trinity College Dublin's TDRA Group-based Project Awards

Call for Applications PhD-4 in Digital Humanities: “Sonic Narrative Approaches to Cultural Heritage – The Long Room’s Digital Twin”

Supervised by: Nicole Basaraba, Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Deadline for applications: 12pm (GMT) on 26th June 2026.

Visit: https://dh.tcd.ie/call-for-applications-funded-phd-in-digital-humanities/

About the group project: The renovation and public closure of Trinity College Dublin’s (TCD) Long Room of the Old Library present an unparalleled opportunity to conduct pioneering research “on”, “through”, and “for” this iconic space. This initiative will redefine how we preserve and enhance one of Europe’s premier cultural heritage landmarks. This project will delve into aspects of the Long Room that have been largely overlooked: its acoustic experiences and sonic architecture. This project will use state-of-the-art robot-aided acoustic measurements and employ advanced computational and acoustic modelling techniques to create a versatile Acoustic Digital Twin, which will be combined with existing 3D image data. The project will train four PhD researchers who will collaborate across four different disciplines (i.e., Digital Humanities/Narratology; Film Studies; Computer Science; Engineering) under the unifying project goal to preserve, enhance, and reimagine the Long Room Library’s unique acoustic and immersive, cultural heritage storytelling experiences.

PhD-4 theoretical context: This project will draw upon transmedial narratology with a contribution to knowledge aimed at ‘audio narratology’ (and/or similar specialisations) for cultural heritage case studies. The PhD will draw upon concepts and methods from digital humanities and analyse datasets / case studies related to creating ‘digital twins’ and 3D models of heritage infrastructure to answer a research question that drives this interdisciplinary research forward.

Research Objectives:

Investigate sensory-based opportunities for indoor spatial narratives to enhance visitor understanding of on-site sonic/audio and multimodal narrative experiences.
Develop a narrative framework focused on audio modalities for heritage XR storytelling using the Long Room’s Digital Twin as a case study.
Collaborate with PhD-2 (Computer Science) and PhD-3 (Creative Arts) to integrate storytelling elements with film, soundscapes, and XR technologies based on the digital twin created by PhD-1 (Engineering).

Person Specification, minimum eligibility requirements (i.e., for PhD entry to TCD):

A minimum 2.1 achievement (Upper Second-Class Honours) in an undergraduate degree equivalent to Ireland’s National Qualification Framework (NQF) level 8. A master’s degree (level 9) in a related subject is strongly recommended, ideally with a distinction classification.
English-language competency at Band B is essential.

The award comprises the student’s PhD tuition fees (EU or non-EU) and an annual stipend of €25,000 for four years.

Full details on the PhD-4 call specifications can be found here: https://dh.tcd.ie/call-for-applications-funded-phd-in-digital-humanities/

Project webpage: https://dh.tcd.ie/projects-2/from-silence-to-story/

Deadline for applications: 12pm (GMT) on 26th June 2026.

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Contact:

Dr. Nicole Basaraba (n.basaraba@tcd.ie)

Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland