Curriculum Vitae

Name:

Þorgeir Sigurðsson, 14th of January 1957, thorgsi@outlook.com

Education: 

  • An Electrical Engineer from the University of Iceland in June 1981.
  • An MS-degree from DTU in Copenhagen in February 1983 (Civilingeniør, elektroingeniør).
  • A BA-degree in Icelandic studies from the University of Iceland in October 1991 and an MA degree in February 2003.
  • A doctoral degree in Icelandic linguistics 21st of June 2019.
  • A postdoctoral ERCIM fellow at NTNU in Norway 2021-2022 (ERCIM: the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics).

Work: 

  • 1983-1988: Programming at: Hafró, ÍSAL, and IAV.
  • 1988-1996: Teaching at MA, ML, and MR.
  • 1996-1997:  European Language Engineering project “EUROMAP” at Skýrr.
  • 1997-2001: Secretary (manager) of CEN TC304, a European standard committee for computer code-tables (for Icelandic standard - Staðlaráð Íslands).
  • 2001-2016: Expert at the Icelandic Radiation Safety Authority (IRSA).
  • 2015: A scholarship for a doctoral study from the Research fund of University of Iceland, leading to a PhD degree.
  • 2018–20122: One of two editors of a new edition of Snorra-Edda, including the four grammatical treatises.

 Publications: 

 See website  https://uni.hi.is/ths185/articles/

 The intersection of two disciplines

I have degrees in both electrical engineering and Icelandic linguistics and I have worked in fields that intersect these two disciplines.

My dissertations in electrical engineering at the Icelandic University in 1981 and at the Danish Technical University in 1983 were both on voice synthesizers.

I taught courses in mathematics and Icelandic for five years at MA and ML (for one year at MR, I only taught math). During this period (1991-1995), I worked on an Icelandic voice synthesiser with the computer company TölvuMyndir. It was the first Icelandic synthesiser to use naturel voices. A prototype was made in 1995 with the support of Rannís:  See https://timarit.is/page/1838261#page/n7/mode/2up

I worked for Skýrr on a European project called Euromap in 1996-1997. The objective was to raise awareness for the need of multi-lingual language tools for computers.

I worked for Staðlaráð Íslands (Icelandic standard) in 1997–2001 as a secretary of a European standard committee for computer code-tables, CEN TC 304.  Its tasks included standards for European characters, and their use, such as in sorting. A new character, the Euro-sign, was introduced into code-tables. The work was supported by the European Commission.

I worked for the Icelandic radiation safety authority in 2001–2016.  My tasks  included inspections of equipment for industrial radiation and non-ionizing radiation (UV, GSM etc.). In this job, I experimented with using x-rays for reading hidden texts and using infrared and UV radiation to reveal information not visible to the naked eye.

Some important publications

I presented a conference poster and published a paper in year 2008 in the Proceedings of the NSFS XV conference in Ålesund, Norway. “The number and usage of sunbeds in Iceland 1988 and 2005.” In this paper I showed that the number of sunbeds in Iceland was much larger than in other countries. This was noted in a peer reviewed article 2015 in American Journal of Epidemiology, where I was the third author “A Melanoma epidemic in Iceland: possible influence of sunbed use.”

I was a co-author one of three of a report prepared by the Icelandic ministry of education published in the year 1999 on the actions needed for securing the use of the Icelandic language in the coming digital information age. Tungutækni - Skýrsla starfshóps.

I discovered the first known instance of radioactive waste being industrially produced in Iceland (several tons per year). I reported on this in a lecture in the SFS XIII conference in Roskilde. My article was published its Proceedings 2015, page 136–141.

I discovered, and made public in a RUV TV interview, that some pages of Icelandic manuscripts could be read using infrared (IR) reflectance. I published a peer reviewed paper in the journal Gripla in 2013 “Ofan í sortann” where this was demonstrated for a part of Egils saga.

In a peer reviewed article 2014, “Arinbjarnarkviða. Uppskrift frá Árna Magnússyni” Gripla 25, pages 129–141, I demonstrated that all copies of the 10th century poem Arinbjarnarkviða, by Egill Skallagrímsson,  derive from a late 17th century copy of a now unreadable 14th century manuscript. In my PhD thesis 2019, The unreadable poem of Arinbjǫrn, I used UV, and IR imaging, together with PCA to recover most of the text of this poem,

In a peer reviewed article 2018, “Hví skal eigi drepa Egil?” Són 16, pages 13–33, I demonstrated that carbon ink was used in a 14th century manuscript of importance. In a peer reviewed article 2022, presented at the Heri-Tech 2022 conference and published by Springer Verlag, I showed that carbon inks were not used in dated charters until the 14th century in Iceland and the same applied to Norway.

In an article in the Icelandic linguistic journal Íslenskt mál 2021, I showed that Old Norse rhyme  was already fully regular in the poem Haustlöng at around year 900.  In an article in Mål og Minne in 2023, I showed that the rhyme of a vs. ja was inaccurate in the 10th century and the 11th century and the rhyme of ó vs. jó did not exist at all in the 1oth century.