James and Aylin talk to Sarah Fiddyment and Timothy Stinson about their work in the emerging field of biocodicology, the study of the biomolecular information found in manuscripts.

Sarah Fiddyment received her PhD from the University of Zaragoza in 2011, working in the field of proteomics in cardiovascular research. She moved to the University of York in 2012, where she developed a non-invasive sampling technique that has enabled her to establish the emerging field of biocodicology. In 2019, Sarah joined the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge as part of the ERC funded Beasts to Craft project.

Timothy Stinson is Associate Professor of English at North Carolina State University. He is co-director of the Medieval Electronic Scholarly Alliance, director of the Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts, co-director of the Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, associate director of the Advanced Research Consortium, and editor of the Siege of Jerusalem Electronic Archive. He has also collaborated with colleagues in the biological sciences to analyze the DNA found in medieval manuscripts.

Music credits: Intro / outro: TeknoAXE, “Chiptune Nobility” (CC BY 4.0), interludes: Random Mind, “Rejoicing” (CC0).

Transcript and more information at https://codingcodices.wordpress.com/2021/12/02/episode-9-biocodicology-from-dust-to-data/.

Recorded 17 September 2021. Edited by James Harr.