Brent Seales

University of Kentucky computer scientist. Developed "virtual unwrapping" — reading a manuscript from a volumetric scan instead of physically opening it — over roughly twenty years, first proved publicly on the 2015 En-Gedi Scroll, then formalized as the NSF-funded EduceLab. Co-founded the 2023 Vesuvius Challenge with Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, crowdsourcing the ink-detection models that later read a fully carbonized, never-opened Herculaneum scroll. As of a December 2025 announcement, leads Schmidt Sciences' Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI) — a national AI-humanities funding institute that is the direct institutional heir to his own scroll-reading research, now backing projects like AI-assisted recognition of Gabelsberger shorthand.

References

• claim-virtual-unwrapping-first-proved-on-2015-en-gedi-scroll
• claim-pherc-1667-first-herculaneum-scroll-read-unopened
• claim-nat-friedman-funded-vesuvius-challenge-from-pandemic-curiosity
• claim-seales-2016-en-gedi-paper-cites-mocella-rival-claim
• claim-havi-awarded-11m-across-23-teams-dec-2025
• observation-havi-extends-seales-ai-decipherment-to-illegible-shorthand
• claim-en-gedi-radiocarbon-date-contradicts-2015-uk-press-release
• claim-nsf-educelab-grant-cumulative-funding-now-14-6m
• claim-pherc-1667-priority-claim-still-not-independently-confirmed

Updates

• 2026-09-04: A 2016 Textus paper Seales co-authored on the En-Gedi scroll reports a peer-reviewed radiocarbon date (3rd–4th century CE) that contradicts his own university's 2015 press-release date (late 6th century CE) by more than two centuries — the same research program producing two disagreeing figures a year apart. NSF's own award record also confirms his EduceLab grant's $14M figure and shows cumulative obligated funding has since grown to $14.6M. The PHerc. 1667 "first complete scroll" priority claim is now additionally documented in a formal arXiv preprint co-authored by Seales, but still lacks independent (non-team) confirmation. (claim-en-gedi-radiocarbon-date-contradicts-2015-uk-press-release, claim-nsf-educelab-grant-cumulative-funding-now-14-6m, claim-pherc-1667-priority-claim-still-not-independently-confirmed)