Elisabeth Eick
Fields/Specialties
Colonial America
Native American Slavery
Legal History
Digital Humanities
Education
B.A. History and Linguistics, College of William and Mary, 2026. Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa
Biography
Elisabeth "Libby" Eick is an MA student in Early America. She researches the legality of Indigenous slavery in colonial Virginia, with a focus on freedom-making through the judicial system.
Libby also founded the academic information technology Bonny Broom Research. Her flagship research project, Videlicet, is an Artificial Intelligence-enabled historical archive, transcription, and search system. The tool stores, searches/indexes, transcribes, and visualizes large historical datasets. She has patented semantic search technology and an evaluation system to ensure rigorous quality checks and expansive research capabilities. She collaborates with historians, archivists, librarians, and archaeologists to support public-facing digital humanities endeavors. Currently, she works on projects for UVA and James Madison's Montpelier. To find out more, visit the Bonny Broom website!
Grants, Fellowships, and Awards
US Patent No. 12675535 for Software Invention, “Method, System & Computer Program Product for Semantic Search within An AI-Enabled Digital Historical Archive” (2026)
High honors for undergraduate honors thesis, "Just Below the Surface: Indigenous Slavery in Colonial Discourse" (2026)
Charles Center Honors Honors Fellowship (2025)
Ellen Monk Krattiger Award (2025)
Tyler Summer Research Grant (2025)
Conferences and Presentations
eLabratories conference, Revolutions and Reflections: presented "The Cudden Davis Ledger Project" (2026)
Network for Undergraduate Research in Virginia, Undergraduate Research Showcase at the Capitol: presented "Charting Freedom" (2025)