Chiara Piccoli is Research Associate and Data Scientist in the field of 3D reconstruction in the humanities at the 4D Research Lab (Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam). She is an affiliated member of the UvA Data Science Centre. In her research, she investigates the historical relationship between people, their built environments, and their material culture with the aid of digital methods, in particular 3D modelling and GIS mapping.

From 2018 to 2022, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam in the NWO-funded project Virtual Interiors as Interfaces for Big Historical Data. By researching archival and building historical sources, she created 3D reconstructions of a selection of interiors from seventeenth-century Amsterdam houses aiming to investigate the use and experiences of domestic spaces. One of the results of her research is her forthcoming monograph on the home library and books of Pieter de Graeff (1638-1707), Amsterdam patrician and VOC director (Brill, 2025).

Prior to that, she worked as research and teaching staff member in the Digital Archaeology group of Leiden University and was appointed researcher in the FP7 European project CEEDS - The Collective Experience of Empathic Data Systems. The project's overarching goal was to develop innovative tools that would exploit implicit human responses to guide users in discovering patterns and meaning within large datasets.

She is the author of Visualizing cityscapes of Classical antiquity: from early modern reconstruction drawings to digital 3D models (Archaeopress, 2018) resulting from her PhD research. She co-edited Advanced research and design tools for architectural heritage. Unforeseen paths (Routledge, 2024) with Stefania Stellacci and Danilo Giglitto, and The three dimensions of archaeology (Archaeopress, 2016) with Hans Kamermans, Wieke de Neef, Axel G. Posluschny and Roberto Scopigno. 

At the University of Amsterdam, she coordinates the course "Digital 3D Techniques and Methodologies for Conservation and Art Technological Research", part of the Master's in Conservation and Restoration, and co-teaches "De Digitale Stad" (The digital city), part of the Master's in Architectural History. In 2024 she was awarded a grassroots grant to develop a prototype immersive Virtual Reality environment for teaching digital restoration practices.

Chiara holds an MA degree in Greek and Roman Archaeology (University of Siena, 2008) and an MA degree in Book and Digital Media Studies (Leiden University, 2010) for which she was awarded the Tiele-Stichting thesis prize in 2011 for the best thesis in the field of Book Studies in the Netherlands.

Project portfolio at https://visualpasts.eu/