About

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Charles Berret is a writer, interdisciplinary researcher, and data journalist who studies the history and philosophy of media and information technologies. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in critical data visualization at Linköping University in Sweden.

Charles completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 2019 with a dissertation on the cultural history of cryptography in twentieth-century America. That research forms the basis of his first book, Cryptographic Amnesia (forthcoming from MIT Press, 2025). Other recent projects have focused on sensemaking, collaborative photogrammetry, data cleaning, algorithmic transparency, digital typography, and encryption tools that journalists use to protect their sources.

As a teacher, Charles's main focus is the development of digital literacies in fields that have traditionally centered on print culture. His teaching is premised on the belief that coding, much like writing, is a tool for thinking and for clarifying our ideas.

Charles's research has been funded by the Wallenberg AI Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP), the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, the Knight Foundation, and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism. His scholarly work has been published in the Journal of Visual Culture, the Journal of Communication Inquiry, Leonardo, and others.