Vector bundle cohomology represents a key ingredient for string phenomenology, being associated with the massless spectrum arising in string compactifications on smooth compact manifolds. Although standard algorithmic techniques exist for performing cohomology calculations, they are laborious and ill-suited for scanning over large sets of string compactifications to find those most relevant to particle physics. In this article (based on the second author’s lecture at the Nankai Symposium, August 2021) we review some recent progress in deriving closed-form expressions for line bundle cohomology and discuss some applications to string phenomenology.