Hello!

I’m Unso, a computational historian and Assistant Research Professor at Cornell University.

At Cornell University, I teach a course on the History of AI in the Department of Information Science. I’m also writing a book on the same topic, telling a longue duree narrative of how AI evolved through its technical, sociocultural, and philosophical angles. I start from the protestant reformation and the early conceptualization of modeling natural intelligence and end with modern policy challenges of AI.

Previously, I worked as an AI engineer at Hugging Face with researchers like Nils Reimers and Meg Mitchell. My best known work to date is on data collection for socio-cultural AI systems. I am most interested in projects that have both technical rigor and humanistic depth. (last update: April 8, 2025)

Current Projects

Currently, I am working on topics related to low resource languages for LLMs and code generation, in particular SQL.

My past work can be seen here.

Education

I graduated last year from the Stanford History Department with a PhD thesis proposing a new approach of doing historical research in the era of digital abundance that I coined New Archival History. In it I demonstrate history’s transition to digital methods through an archival example of the Foreign Relations of the United States series. I had the fortune of working with two wonderful advisers across Economics and History, Gavin Wright and Zephyr Frank. I was part of the inaugural cohort of the Stanford Data Science Institute, where we launched several inter-departmental programs to foster cross-campus collaborations.

I also have an MS in Computer Science from Stanford where I focused on AI and I went to Brown University for college where I studied Economics and received a senior thesis award for best thesis in international history.

F.A.Q.s

Q. How do you pronounce your name? The most international friendly way to pronounce it is OON-SO. I go by Unso or Eun Seo in writing. :)

Q. Are you a historian? Yes, I’m a historian by training. My first publication was on the Asian-regional economic implications of the Vietnam War.

Q. Are you American? No, I was born and raised in South Korea. But I’ve lived in the U.S. for the majority of my adult-life and identify best with American culture. I’ve also lived in Singapore where I attended Australian and international schools. I’m currently located in Seoul, South Korea.