C. Michael Sperberg-McQueen is an American

markup language Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document ...

specialist. He was co-editor of the Extensible Markup Language (

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

) 1.0 spec (1998), and chair of the

XML Schema An XML schema is a description of a type of Extensible Markup Language, XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed ...

working group. He was also instrumental in the

Text Encoding Initiative The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is a text-centric community of practice in the academic field of digital humanities, operating continuously since the 1980s. The community currently runs a mailing list, meetings and conference series, and main ...

(TEI), an international cooperative project to develop and disseminate guidelines for the encoding and interchange of electronic text for research. He was co-editor, with

Lou Burnard Lou Burnard (born 1946 in Birmingham, England) is an internationally recognised expert in digital humanities, particularly in the area of Markup language, text encoding and digital libraries. He was assistant director of Oxford University Computi ...

, of the TEI's Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange in 1994. He also served as

editor in chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the TEI from 1988 to 2000.

and TEI have become ubiquitous in their domains. Sue Polanka (Head of Reference/Instruction, Wright State University Libraries) notes that the TEI "...in the 1980s and 90s established a fundamental set of methods and practices that now underpin most

digital humanities Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...

scholarship" Sperberg-McQueen has been a key leader of these and other standards efforts through extensive speaking, teaching, writing, and research. He holds a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, and has taught and published widely on markup systems,

overlapping markup In markup languages and the digital humanities, overlap occurs when a document has two or more structures that interact in a non- hierarchical manner. A document with overlapping markup cannot be represented as a tree. This is also known as concur ...

, formal languages, semantic theory, and other topics. In 2015, Sperberg-McQueen held courses on Digital Humanities at the

Technische Universität Darmstadt The Technische Universität Darmstadt (official English name Technical University of Darmstadt, sometimes also referred to as Darmstadt University of Technology), commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmstadt ...

as visiting professor. He also talked in an interview about his work experience for the Princeton University and the Symbiose of computers and humanities.

References

* http://www.w3.org/People/cmsmcq/ – Home page at the Web Consortium * http://cmsmcq.com/ – personal Web page, with selected publications at http://cmsmcq.com/doclist.html * http://www.gca.org/papers/xmleurope2001/papers/bio/s02-1auth1.html—bio from XML Europe 2001 conference * http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2003_Dec_10/ai_111110786/ -- "XML Cup 2003 Awards Presented" {{DEFAULTSORT:Sperberg-Mcqueen, Michael Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer programmers World Wide Web Consortium Stanford University alumni Linguists XML Guild Text Encoding Initiative Technische Universität Darmstadt faculty People in digital humanities