Cole Crawford

About

I'm Cole, a software engineer focused on building GenAI systems for the web. I work primarily on the backend these days, with deep experience across frontend, DevOps, NLP, data visualization, and project management from years of shipping production systems for research.

I'm currently a Staff AI Engineer at Reify Health, working on applied AI for managing clinical trials. Before Reify I was a Senior AI Software Engineer at Wood Mackenzie, the first hire on their new Core AI Platform team — leading the redesign of Woody, their internal agentic framework. Before industry I spent eight years at Harvard's Arts & Humanities Research Computing group (DARTH), building roughly twenty research platforms — digital archives, TEI editing, IIIF image delivery, NLP-driven search, and a lot of data visualization.

On the side I run Hapax Digital, an AI and software-engineering consultancy focused on digital humanities and ed-tech. Based in Somerville, MA.

Experience

  1. Staff AI Engineer · Reify Health

    2026 – Present

    Applied AI for managing clinical trials.

  2. Senior AI Software Engineer · Wood Mackenzie · Core AI Platform

    Apr 2025 – Apr 2026

    First hire on the newly-formed Core AI Platform team. Led the ground-up redesign of Woody — Woodmac's internal chatbot and agentic AI framework — and built Quarry, a document-processing and retrieval system that unified search across the firm's content.

  3. Senior Software Engineer · Harvard — Arts & Humanities Research Computing

    Jul 2023 – Apr 2025

    Technical lead for the DARTH engineering team. Mentored engineers, led multiple full stack projects from inception to sunsetting, planned long-term digital scholarship strategy with the Library and HUIT, and served on the steering committee of the DHTech ADHO Special Interest Group.

  4. Software Engineer · Harvard — Arts & Humanities Research Computing

    Mar 2021 – Jul 2023

    Built custom web applications, text-analysis pipelines, data models, and visualizations for FAS faculty. Maintained the group's AWS infrastructure (ECS Fargate) and GitHub org. Co-chaired the Digital Scholarship Support Group and launched a Digital Scholarship Graduate Certificate.

  5. Humanities Research Computing Specialist · Harvard — Arts & Humanities Research Computing

    Aug 2017 – Mar 2021

    Consulted on FAS digital projects end-to-end, connected faculty with Harvard Library and HUIT resources, and led workshops on digital research methods, tools, and programming.

  6. Founder & Principal · Hapax Digital

    2026 – Present

    An AI and software-engineering consultancy focused on digital humanities and ed-tech projects. Current engagement: an agentic system for Jesuit formation at Saint Louis University.

Education

  • Master of Liberal Arts, Software Engineering
    Harvard Extension School
    2017 – 2023
  • M.A., English (Literature and Culture)
    Oregon State University
    2015 – 2017
  • B.S., Computer Science & Informatics; English (British Literature)
    Creighton University · Honors, summa cum laude
    2011 – 2015

Selected publications

  • DH Inside Out
  • Undate: Humanistic Dates for Computation
  • Exploring Big and Boutique Data through Laboring-Class Poets Online
  • Connecting Art and Science for Humanities Research: Mapping Color in History
  • Transforming Working Class Writers and Writing
    in A History of British Working Class Literature, Cambridge UP

Get in touch

Email cole@hapax.digital, or find me on GitHub and LinkedIn.