Karina van Dalen-Oskam’s research focuses on the Computational Literary Studies. She is particularly involved in the development of methods and techniques for stylistic analysis of literary texts. She concentrates on both Middle Dutch works and modern Dutch (and English) novels. With respect to Middle Dutch works, Van Dalen-Oskam studies how the computer can help distinguish between authors and copyists. In her research into modern novels, she analyses the use and functions of proper names as a stylistic element. She is developing a genre, time, language and cross-comparative method for the analysis of such elements. As a professor at the UvA, Van Dalen-Oskam will focus in particular on linking the textual and text-analytical expertise of (Dutch) Literary Studies with computational expertise and know-how. In this way, she will serve as a link between Huygens ING and the Faculty of Humanities at the UvA.

Van Dalen-Oskam studied Dutch Linguistics and Literary studies at Utrecht University and obtained her PhD from Leiden University in 1997 with a thesis entitled Studies of Jacob van Maerlant's Rhyming Bible. From 1988 to 2001, she worked at the Institute for Dutch Lexicology in Leiden. In 2002, she joined the Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI), as head of the Department of Dutch Linguistics and Literary Studies and senior researcher. Since 2005, Van Dalen-Oskam has worked at Huygens ING, first as research leader ICT & Texts, and since 2011, as research leader of the department of Textual Scholarship and Literary Studies. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing. Van Dalen-Oskam recently started the project 'The riddle of literary quality’, in which she collaborates with researchers at the Fryske Academy and the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) of the UvA.