An anthropologist among AI experts

Building tools for more transparent and accountable knowledge systems.

Designing AI systems that show not only what they know, but what they cannot know.

I work at the intersection of anthropology, Digital Humanities, cultural heritage, and responsible AI, building tools that make sources, uncertainty, absence, bias, and interpretive limits visible.

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"Absence is not just a limitation of knowledge. Sometimes, absence is part of the knowledge."
Areas of Engagement

Core Research Areas

Integrating anthropological rigor with responsible computing practices.

01

Cultural Heritage & Digital Humanities

Research on Mesoamerican archaeology, cultural archives, digital heritage, and the interpretation of incomplete records.

02

Epistemic Accountability in AI

Work on AI systems that show sources, uncertainty, absence, bias, and interpretive limits instead of producing fluent answers without context.

03

AI Literacy & Human-AI Collaboration

Workshops, writing, and public-facing projects that help people use AI critically, practically, and responsibly.

Flagship Project

Heritage Lens Agent

An AI-assisted research system for specialised cultural heritage archives.

Heritage Lens links answers to sources and includes an epistemic transparency layer showing what the system does not know, and why.

Rather than producing fluent answers without context, it surfaces the shape of the underlying corpus, tracing source biases and knowledge absences directly from metadata.

Recognition & Impact

  • Finalist, Agents and Robotics HackXelerator 2026, organised by KXSB CIC.
  • Accepted Initiative, UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance Partnerships Hub, as an ongoing project for operationalising epistemic accountability.
https://heritagelensagent.streamlit.app/
Biography

About Larissa Terranova

I am a Digital Humanities researcher and anthropologist who builds and critiques AI tools for cultural heritage, epistemic accountability, and human-AI collaboration.

My strength lies not only in technical implementation, but in the anthropological perspective I bring to AI system design. I focus on context, interpretation, absence, uncertainty, evidence, cultural memory, and the limits of knowledge.

Currently based in London, my research bridges Mesoamerican archaeological records with responsible computing, showing that understanding what a system *cannot* know is just as critical as showing what it does.

DH / ANT

"Designing AI systems that respect the interpretive limits of evidence."

Engagements

Talks & Workshops

Presenting research on Digital Heritage, AI ethics, and Americanist studies.

2026 Southampton

UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association

Workshop Leader

Led the workshop "Working Sustainably with AI in Digital Heritage Research." Focused on designing long-term digital archives and the integration of accountable retrieval systems in cultural archives.

2026 Perugia

CSACA / International Congress of Americanists

Presenter & Session Coordinator

Coordinated session panels and presented archaeological findings related to Mesoamerican symbol systems and materiality.

2025 Nottingham

Cultural Heritage Management & Conservation Conference

Presenter

Presented research on the curation of archaeological databases and computational challenges in tracking historical resource provenance at the University of Nottingham.

Publications

Selected Writing

Exploring Mesoamerican materiality, digital curation, and computational limits.

01
Thesis

Formazione della Città in Mesoamerica

An extensive digital-humanities approach analyzing urbanization processes, obsidian exchange routes, and ritual materiality in Olmec and early Mesoamerican societies.

02
Article Preview

Absence as Data: Structural Uncertainty in Cultural RAG Architectures

A conceptual framework outlining how Large Language Models can represent contested or missing history through metadata annotations instead of generic disclaimer boilerplate.

Connection

Initiate a Conversation

I am open to academic collaborations, consulting opportunities, conference panels, and workshops.

Feel free to reach out to discuss epistemic accountability in AI, digital heritage, Mesoamerican archaeology, or workshops.

Base Location London, United Kingdom