Find Academic Supervisors

Pranav AnandView profile

Professor

• Semantics
• Pragmatics
• Syntax-Semantics Interface
• +5 more

Pranav Anand is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). He currently serves as the Faculty Director of the Humanities Institute at UCSC since July 2023. His research focuses on the interplay between context, interpretation, and grammatical perspective, particularly in areas like de re/de se contrasts, evaluative predication, and indexical shift. He has contributed to studies on narrative structures, evidential restrictions, and the syntax-semantics interface in sluicing. Dr. Anand has taught a variety of courses including Ling 119: Narratives , Ling 231: Semantics A , and special topics like Invented Languages: From Elvish to Esperanto . His work bridges theoretical linguistics with computational methods, evidenced by collaborations in projects such as the Santa Cruz sluicing dataset and analyses of political discourse in online commentary. His research has been published in journals like Linguistics and Philosophy , Language , and Discourse and Society , with a focus on semantics, pragmatics, and narrative linguistics. He has also contributed to computational linguistics initiatives, including the development of annotated corpora for sentiment analysis and argumentation studies. Dr. Anand's academic contributions span both theoretical exploration and applied computational linguistics, reflecting his interdisciplinary approach to understanding language structure and usage.

Dylan Hadfield-MenellView profile

Assistant Professor

• AI Alignment
• Human-AI Interaction
• Reinforcement Learning
• +3 more

Dylan Hadfield-Menell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holding the Bonnie and Marty (1964) Tenenbaum Career Development Professorship. His research focuses on AI alignment and human-AI interaction within MIT's School of Engineering. His research interests center on agent alignment problems in AI systems, particularly examining uncertainty in objective optimization for human-robot teams and societal oversight of machine learning systems. Key areas include the principal-agent alignment problem , assistance games frameworks , and robust preference learning that accounts for hidden contextual factors in reinforcement learning from human feedback. His recent publications reveal strong trends toward multi-agent cooperation , formal contract mechanisms for resolving social dilemmas, and advanced evaluation methodologies for AI safety. The research spans theoretical frameworks like open-universe assistance games while addressing practical challenges in language model alignment and cultural bias assessment. Scientific awards include: AI2050 Early Career Fellowship from Schmidt Futures Berkeley Fellowship NSF Graduate Research Fellowship C.V. Ramamoorthy Distinguished Research Award His work bridges theoretical computer science with real-world AI governance challenges, as demonstrated through MIT's participation in AI policy white papers. Current research directions include developing frameworks for transparent AI systems and addressing fundamental limitations in aligning recommender systems with human values through interdisciplinary synthesis.

Mark SteedmanView profile

Professor

• Computational Linguistics
• Natural Language Processing
• Combinatory Categorial Grammar
• +2 more

Mark Steedman is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics, with adjunct appointment at University of Pennsylvania. His research spans computational linguistics, AI, and cognitive science, focusing on Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) and its applications. His research examines: Combinatory Categorial Grammar parsing and semantics Language model capabilities and limitations Cross-linguistic semantic inference Brain modeling of language processing Recent publications analyze hallucination sources in large language models, cross-linguistic entailment graphs, and brain-computer parallels in structure-building. He develops computational models integrating symbolic and distributional approaches to semantics. Honors include ACL Lifetime Achievement Award (2018) and George E. Davis Medal (2001). He serves on editorial boards of major linguistics journals and has authored influential books including 'The Syntactic Process' and 'Taking Scope'.

John W. Du BoisView profile

Professor

• Discourse and Grammar
• Sociocultural Linguistics
• Referential Pragmatics
• +6 more

John W. Du Bois is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), within the College of Letters and Science. His work focuses on the interplay between discourse, grammar, and sociocultural contexts. Specializing in dialogic syntax, he explores how linguistic structures emerge from interactional dynamics, particularly in conversational coherence and stance-taking mechanisms. His research integrates corpus linguistics, computational methods, and ethnographic approaches to study languages like Mayan and Kazakh. Key research areas include: Discourse and grammar integration Dialogic resonance and affective alignment Corpus design and analysis Ritual language and cognitive models Mayan linguistic systems Recent studies emphasize computational tools like Rezonator for dialogue coherence visualization and remote corpus development methodologies. His work bridges theoretical linguistics with applied research in language documentation and education. Du Bois has contributed to foundational texts on discourse transcription standards and maintains active involvement in the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English project. His publications span over four decades, reflecting sustained engagement with linguistic complexity across multiple levels—from micro-level syntactic interactions to macro-level sociocultural frameworks. Current projects investigate dialogic syntax in autism and the evolutionary niche of language within social interaction.

Mizuki MazzottaView profile

Teaching Professor

• Second Language Acquisition
• Applied Linguistics
• Language Pedagogy
• +3 more

Mizuki Mazzotta is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures at Emory University, where she also serves as Japanese Language Coordinator. Her academic journey includes a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Georgia State University (2018) and M.A. degrees in Linguistics (McGill University) and Applied Linguistics (University of South Florida). Her research focuses on instructed second language acquisition, particularly the role of affect and sociocultural theory in L2 learning. She has extensive experience teaching Japanese language courses and mentoring students at Emory and previous institutions like Georgia State University. Education: Ph.D., Applied Linguistics, Georgia State University (2018) M.A., Linguistics, McGill University (2005) M.A., Applied Linguistics, University of South Florida (1997) B.A., English Literature, Soka University (1995) Research Interests: Instructed Second Language Acquisition Corrective Feedback in L2 Writing Sociocultural Theory in Language Education Learner Affect and Motivation Technology-Enhanced Language Learning Cultural Awareness in Language Instruction Awards & Grants: Recipient of multiple grants including the KAKENHI Grant (Japan), Mellon Humanities Pathways Grant, and Emory College Pedagogy Mini-Grant. Member of honor societies: Phi Beta Delta and Golden Key International. Service & Leadership: Executive Committee Member, Emory College Language Center Organizer of Japanese Program Guest Speaker Talks and Cultural Events Reviewer for Language Teaching Research and other academic journals Interviewer for the Japan Exchange Teaching Program Teaching & Mentorship: Instructor of Japanese language courses at Emory and Georgia State University Developer of study abroad programs in Japan and internship collaborations Mentor for Japanese interns and temporary faculty

• Human–robot interaction
• Spoken language processing
• Image and audio processing
• +3 more

Tetsunori Kobayashi is a Professor in the School of Fundamental Science and Engineering at Waseda University, Japan, where he has served since 1997. He is renowned for pioneering research in human–robot interaction, spoken language processing, and multimodal conversational systems, leading to over 230 refereed papers and an h-index of 35 (Google Scholar). Education: 1980 B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering, Waseda University 1982 M.Eng. and 1985 Dr.Eng. from Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University Research Interests: His work spans intelligent robotics , perceptual information processing , pattern recognition , image and audio processing , and conversational AI . He develops algorithms for real-time dialogue systems, multi-party conversation facilitation robots, and non-autoregressive speech recognition leveraging CTC and pre-trained language models. Recent Publication Trends: Since 2020 his group has advanced non-autoregressive end-to-end ASR (Mask-CTC, Intermpl, BECTRA), noise-robust attention , multi-look-ahead conversational ASR , and neural speaker diarization . They integrate BERT-style pre-training with CTC losses to accelerate inference while maintaining accuracy. Parallel work explores vision-and-language topics such as scene-graph generation, video semantic indexing, and personalized summarization for spoken news delivery. Scientific Awards: IEICE Fellow 2023 – for multi-modal multi-party conversation research IPSJ Fellow 2016 – for pioneering robot conversation studies JST Award for Academic Start-ups 2024 Best Paper Awards from IEICE, IEEE BTAS, ACM SIGGRAPH VRCAI, and several IPSJ workshop prizes Advising & Grants: He has mentored dozens of PhD and Master’s students who now lead in academia and industry. Major funded projects include JST CREST on conversational robotics, NEDO and JST-support for AI-based speech interfaces, and industry collaborations with NHK, OKI, and NEC. Labs & Teams: Kobayashi heads the Perceptual Computing Laboratory at Waseda, conducting interdisciplinary research with domestic and international partners such as MIT, ATR, and NHK Science & Technology Labs.

Jonathan KummerfeldView profile

Senior Lecturer

• Natural Language Processing
• Artificial Intelligence
• Human-Computer Interaction
• +4 more

Dr. Jonathan Kummerfeld is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney's School of Computer Science, specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and AI collaboration. He holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and a B.Sc. from the University of Sydney, with postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan. His work focuses on enabling computers to collaborate effectively with humans through NLP, including interactive systems, dialogue, and crowdsourcing. Education: PhD in Computer Science, UC Berkeley (advised by Dan Klein), 2016 B.Sc. in Computer Science, University of Sydney (advised by James Curran), 2010 Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Michigan (2016–2021) Research Interests: Interactive Executable Semantic Parsing NLP Data Science for Messy Real-World Data AI Collaboration in Games and Dialogue His recent work explores empathetic AI systems, alignment algorithms, and AI-resilient interfaces. Over 50 publications span venues like ACL, NAACL, and ICML. Grants & Advising: CHIRON (DARPA): AI for recognizing opponent narratives Google/Amazon grants for annotation tools and dialogue systems Advising PhD student Kent O'Sullivan His lab develops tools like SLATE and contributes to dialogue corpora. Labs/Teams: Leads the Sydney NLP Lab, focusing on human-AI collaboration and scalable NLP systems.

Ana Belén Llopis CardonaView profile

Associate Professor

• Discourse Markers
• Pragmatics
• Discourse Analysis
• +7 more

Ana Belén Llopis Cardona is an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish Philology at the Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication, University of Valencia. She is a member of the Val.Es.Co. research group, dedicated to the study of colloquial Spanish. Her academic work centers on discourse analysis, pragmatics, and the functional roles of discourse markers in spoken and written Spanish. PhD in Spanish Linguistics, University of Valencia, 2011 Supervised by Dr. Salvador Pons Bordería and Dr. Antonio Briz Gómez Her research explores the evolution and usage of discourse markers such as "eso sí," "por su parte," "en definitiva," and "igual/lo mismo," analyzing their semantic-pragmatic cycles, grammaticalization processes, and sociolinguistic functions. She investigates how colloquial language functions as a rhetorical strategy in media genres like radio commentary. Her methodological approach integrates corpus analysis, construction grammar, and functional linguistics. Her recent publications span topics including evidentiality (e.g., "según"), politeness in dialogic literary gatherings, and prosodic variation in discourse particles. The body of her work reveals a consistent focus on the dynamic interplay between form, function, and context in Spanish discourse. Discourse Markers Pragmatics Grammaticalization Spanish Linguistics Evidentiality Colloquial Register Ana Belén Llopis Cardona actively contributes to academic discourse through publications in international journals and participation in research collaborations. While specific grant details are not listed, her sustained scholarly output indicates ongoing research activity and academic engagement.

• Phonology
• Language Usage Science
• Semiotics
• +5 more

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ihab Said Ibrahim IBRAHİM is a faculty member at the Faculty of Theology , Kastamonu University , Turkey, since 2014. His research focuses on Arabic Language and Rhetoric within Islamic Studies, with expertise in phonology, semiotics, and Quranic exegesis. PhD in Arabic Language and Literature (Tanta University, 2011) MA in Arabic Language and Literature (Menoufia University, 2005) BA in Arabic Language and Literature (Menoufia University, 2000) His research explores phonological patterns in classical Arabic texts, semantic shifts in Quranic interpretation, and interdisciplinary applications of linguistics in literary and religious contexts. Recent publications analyze syntactic deviations in Arabic poetry, lexical semiotics in dictionaries, and phonetic analysis of Quran recitations. He has supervised 12 graduate theses, including studies on stylistic innovations in pre-Islamic poetry and phonetic analysis of Quranic manuscripts. His work appears in journals like Turkish Studies and Harran Theology Journal .

Mikel LabianoView profile

Professor

• Ancient Greek Linguistics
• Classical Philology
• Greek Comedy
• +6 more

Mikel Labiano is a Professor of Greek Philology at the University of Valencia since 2003, affiliated with the Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication and the Department of Classical Philology. He is actively involved in the GRATUV research group and has published extensively on ancient Greek drama and medical texts. PhD in Classical Philology (University of Salamanca, 1999) Specializes in Aristophanic comedy and Corpus Hippocraticum His research focuses on: Linguistic features of Attic drama Conversational analysis in ancient texts Pseudepigraphic documents and authorship attribution Dialectal variation in Greek texts Imperative constructions in tragedy Stylistic parody mechanisms Recent publications analyze: Particle combinations in Platonic dialogues Comparative suffixes in Aristophanic comedy Imperial decrees in Hippocratic corpus Technical language parody in drama He teaches courses in Greek language and classical philology at multiple levels.

• Discourse Acquisition
• Development of Written Language Use
• Classroom Communication
• +4 more

Prof. Dr. Sören Ohlhus is a Professor of Linguistics and Language Didactics at the University of Hildesheim , specifically within the Institute for German Language and Literature . His academic career spans institutions including TU Dortmund University, University of Hamburg, and Bielefeld University, reflecting a deep engagement with discourse studies and educational linguistics. Current position: Professor (since 2021) Prior roles: Junior Professor (2017–2021), Acting Professor (2014–2015), Temporary Academic Councillor (2012–2017) Ohlhus's research focuses on discourse acquisition , development of written language use , and multimodal communication in educational settings. His work examines how interactive learning processes shape narrative and argumentative competence, particularly in primary and secondary schools. He has led and contributed to interdisciplinary projects like 'Writing between Languages and Cultures' and 'The Role of Family Support in Discourse and Writing Skills', funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and Federal Ministry of Education and Research. His 15 most recent publications explore themes across oral and written narrative structures, classroom discourse, and semiotic resource integration. Notably, his 2019 work on perspectivity in learning processes and 2017 studies on multimodal resources in arithmetic education highlight his interdisciplinary approach. He has also co-edited special issues on classroom interaction and published monographs on topics like narrative as a process and knowledge generation in practice fields. Ohlhus has collaborated extensively, co-authoring with scholars such as Uta Quasthoff, Friederike Kern, and Miriam Morek. His projects often bridge theoretical linguistics with practical educational applications, emphasizing the role of interactive contexts in textual competence development.

Silvia Dal NegroView profile

Professor

• Language Education
• Contact Linguistics
• Linguistic Minorities
• +3 more

Silvia Dal Negro is a Full Professor of Linguistics at the Free University of Bolzano's Faculty of Education . She earned her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Pavia and previously worked as a researcher at the University of Eastern Piedmont. Research Focus: Language education, contact linguistics, linguistic minorities in Alpine regions, spoken Italian, and grammar teaching. Academic Contributions: Key projects include KONTATTO (language contact in South Tyrol) and GRASS (grammar teaching research). Her work bridges theoretical and applied linguistics, emphasizing practical implications for teacher training and minority language preservation. She leads interdisciplinary initiatives like the DIALOG project, which explores spoken language variation. Article Trends: Recent publications analyze phonetic reduction in spoken Italian (e.g., cioè vs. cè ), language contact in Walser German, and metalinguistic awareness in education. These studies reveal her focus on pragmatic markers, syntactic variation, and sociolinguistic dynamics. Honors: President of the Italian Association of Applied Linguistics , advancing research and policy for minority languages. Labs & Teams: Collaborates with the DIALOG project team and contributes to the GISCEL network, fostering Italian language education reforms.

Mark JohnsonView profile

Professor

• Natural Language Processing
• Computational Linguistics
• Machine Learning
• +5 more

Mark Johnson is a Professor at Macquarie University's School of Computing, affiliated with the Centre for Language Sciences (CLaS). His research focuses on computational linguistics, natural language processing, and machine learning, with contributions to parsing algorithms, child language acquisition models, and generative AI systems. He leads projects on generative models of life stories, logistics optimization algorithms, and visual dialogue systems using deep neural networks. Research interests include natural language understanding, data augmentation techniques, and model robustness. Notable projects involve developing frameworks for synthetic training data, OOD detection, and integrating named entity recognition with context tags. His work emphasizes practical applications in dialog systems, document analysis, and language model optimization. Collaborations span cross-linguistic studies and AI-driven visualization systems. Key achievements include over 200 research outputs, including influential articles on child language acquisition models and OOD detection. He oversees projects funded by MQRC and industry partnerships, focusing on advancing NLP and AI methodologies. His lab, CLaS, fosters interdisciplinary research in language sciences and computational methods.

Lars FantView profile

Professor

• Pragmatics
• Interactional Linguistics
• Second Language Acquisition
• +6 more

Lars Fant is a Professor at the Department of Romance Studies and Classics, Stockholm University, focusing on Pragmatics , Interactional Linguistics , Second Language Acquisition , and Intercultural Communication . He has supervised over 20 PhD and MA theses in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, and co-authored key language education materials like Bonnier's Spanish Grammar (2004, revised 2015) and a Course in Mediation (2007). Research Groups : Co-founder of RomSLA (Romance Languages and Second Language Acquisition) and RomLing (Romance Linguistics). Projects : Led programs like 'High-level Proficiency in Second Language Use' (funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond) and 'Interaction, Identity, and Language Structure' (funded by SU Humanities grant). Research Trends from his 200+ publications include cross-linguistic analysis of pragmatic markers , discourse strategies in advanced L2 users, and prosodic transfer from L1 to L2. His work bridges theoretical linguistics (e.g., syntactic periphery, modalisation) and applied pedagogy, emphasizing contrastive approaches in language teaching. Teaching spans BA/MA/PhD levels, covering Spanish phonetics, second language acquisition, scientific methodology, and historical linguistics. His supervision includes topics like metadiscursive markers , causative motion expressions , and discourse strategies in heritage speakers .

Hansen Maj-Britt MosegaardView profile

Professor

• Pragmatics
• Semantics
• French Linguistics
• +4 more

Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen is a Professor of Linguistics and Pragmics at The University of Manchester (since 2007), previously holding roles as Associate Professor (University of Copenhagen, 2000-2007) and Assistant Professor (1996-1999). She specializes in pragmatics, semantics, and historical linguistics with a focus on French and Romance languages. Her research explores discourse particles, grammaticalization, and diachronic semantic shifts. She earned her dr.phil. (higher doctorate) from the University of Copenhagen (2008) with a dissertation on particles at the semantics/pragmatics interface. Notable roles include Associate Dean for Research at Manchester's Faculty of Humanities (2018-2021) and Head of Linguistics and English Language (2014-2017). Her work bridges theoretical linguistics and empirical analysis, addressing topics like negation cycles, interactional pragmatics, and medieval French syntax. She is a Fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (2013). Her publications include influential books such as The Structure of Modern Standard French (2016) and over 50 peer-reviewed articles on historical pragmatics and discourse analysis.