Tech on Tap
April 24, 2025
6 p.m.
Virginia Tech Innovation Campus
3625 Potomac Ave.
Alexandria, VA 22305
Join Kurt Luther, associate professor of history and computer science at Virginia Tech, as he presents on his group’s research developing technologies to rediscover the lost names and stories behind historical photos. The project, Civil War Photo Sleuth, available at www.civilwarphotosleuth.com, uses crowdsourcing and AI to identify unknown soldiers in American Civil War-era photos. The project has grown to a reference database of over 60,000 photos, the majority contributed by the user community, and they have successfully identified photos in public collections including the Library of Congress, National Archives, and National Portrait Gallery. It has been featured on The History Channel and in publications such as TIME and Smithsonian. Also based on this research, Kurt and his former PhD advisee, Vikram Mohanty, co-founded a non-profit, The Photo Sleuth Foundation, with the mission of helping historians, museum professionals, genealogists, and collectors solve mysteries involving their historical photos.
Your $10 registration covers two drink tickets, appetizers, and a $5 gift to the Center for HCI.
If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please email Tricia Realbuto at trealbuto@vt.edu during regular business hours at least 10 business days prior to the event.
Registration has closed and we will not be accepting on-site registrations. We hope you'll be able to join us for the next Tech on Tap!