Nicolas Mathevon is a Professor at the University of Saint-Etienne, with a focus on Animal Behavior and Bioacoustics . He currently serves as Director of Studies at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and leads the ENES Team . His research explores acoustic communication across diverse species, including crocodiles, seals, penguins, and humans, with particular emphasis on vocal recognition, signal evolution, and neurobiological underpinnings. Major collaborations include Dr. T. Aubin (CNRS), Dr. I. Charrier (marine mammals), Dr. N. Grimault (crocodilian bioacoustics), and Prof. D. Reby (human communication). He also co-edits a new book, The Voices of Nature , published by Princeton University Press. His recent work spans ecoacoustic monitoring for conservation, multi-modal communication in crocodiles, and cross-species analysis of distress signals in bonobos, chimps, and humans. Neurobiological studies include brain activation patterns in response to vocalizations and sound localization mechanisms in reptiles. Scientific Awards include senior membership in the Institut universitaire de France .
Prof. Dr. Gülşen Eryiğit is a Professor at Istanbul Technical University within the Faculty of Computer and Informatics , Department of Artificial Intelligence and Data Engineering . She founded and directs the ITU Natural Language Processing Group , Turkey's leading team in Turkish-language NLP, and serves as Senior Action Editor for ACL RR , Director of ITU TÖMER (Turkish Language Teaching Center), and Co-Chair of the EU UniDive Cost Action WG3. Education: PhD in Computer Engineering from ITU (2007), MSc and BSc from ITU and Marmara University Research: Focuses on Natural Language Processing for Turkish, including dependency parsing , coreference resolution , multiword expressions , and language education technology Her recent work involves multilingual transfer learning , LLM applications for Turkish text simplification, and gamification for morphology education. She has received prestigious awards like the Siemens Excellence Award and TÜBİTAK's Above Threshold Award . Her research has produced 65+ publications and 29+ projects funded by EU, TÜBİTAK, and industry partners. Scientific Awards: Siemens Excellence Award (2007) Above Threshold Award (TÜBİTAK, 2015) Certificate of Appreciation (EU 7th Framework, 2012) Thank You Plaque (ITU, 2017) The ITU NLP Group under her leadership has developed Turkey's first licensed NLP software exported internationally. She collaborates with European institutions through COST actions and participates in ACL, CoNLL, and LREC conferences. Her lab focuses on language technology for Turkish , including sign language processing and social media normalization.
Dr. Soonja Choi is a Research Professor in the Comparative Psycholinguistics Group at the University of Vienna and Director of the Korean Studies Program at San Diego State University (SDSU), where she holds the title of Professor Emerita of Linguistics. She earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Buffalo (1986) and holds advanced degrees from institutions in France and South Korea. Her research focuses on language and thought, semantics, spatial language, and Korean linguistics, with a particular emphasis on cross-linguistic studies of spatial categorization and its cognitive implications. Research Contributions: Her work has explored how language influences spatial perception and cognition, notably through long-term collaborations with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the National Science Foundation. Key contributions include studies on spatial term development in Korean/English children and cross-linguistic comparisons of spatial semantics between German, Korean, and English. Grants & Awards: Secured over $1.4M in grants including a EUR 600,000 Vienna Science Fund grant (2016-2020) and multiple NSF awards. Elected to the Academy of Europe (2019) as an Ordinary Member. Professional Roles: Served as Chair of SDSU's Department of Linguistics and Oriental Languages (1997-2000, 2001-2002), Graduate Advisor (multiple terms), and editorial board member for Language, Interaction, and Acquisition . Active in academic governance and international linguistic organizations.
Ben Eischens is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at UCLA. His work focuses on the intersection of phonology and phonetics, particularly in San Martín Peras Mixtec, an Otomanguean language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico and diaspora communities. He holds a Ph.D. from UC Santa Cruz (2022) and collaborates extensively with Indigenous communities on language documentation and description. His research explores tone systems, laryngeal features, speech rate effects, and negative nominal structures, emphasizing empirical fieldwork and community partnerships. Recent work includes studies on vowel reduction, polar question formation, and the phonetic grounding of phonological theories. Eischens has presented at major conferences such as the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS), Annual Meeting on Phonology (AMP), and workshops on Languages of the Americas. His publications appear in journals like the International Journal of American Linguistics and Phonological Data & Analysis. He teaches courses in linguistic theory and field methods at UCLA, maintaining active research partnerships with San Martín Peras Mixtec community members. His work bridges theoretical linguistics with applied documentation, prioritizing Indigenous language revitalization efforts.
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.
Freda Shi is an Assistant Professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo and a Faculty Member at the Vector Institute, where she holds a Canada CIFAR AI Chair. She joined the University of Waterloo in July 2024 after completing her Ph.D. at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago. Educational Background: Ph.D. in Computer Science, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (2024), advised by Professors Karen Livescu and Kevin Gimpel Bachelor's degree in Intelligence Science and Technology (Computer Science Track) with a minor in Sociology, Peking University (2018) Dr. Shi's research focuses on computational linguistics and natural language processing, particularly on deeper understandings of natural language and the human language processing mechanism. She is especially interested in learning language through grounding, computational multilingualism, and related machine learning aspects. Her work aims to inform the design of more efficient, effective, safe, and trustworthy NLP systems. She leads the CompLING Lab at the University of Waterloo, which investigates how language models process spatial relationships and acquire linguistic structures through grounded experiences. Her publication record shows a consistent trajectory of high-impact research, with recent work focusing on spatial reasoning in vision-language models, multilingual chain-of-thought capabilities, and grounded language acquisition. She has published in top-tier conferences including ACL, EMNLP, ICLR, and NAACL, with several papers receiving notable recognition including Best Paper Nominee status at multiple venues. Her research bridges theoretical linguistics with practical NLP applications, demonstrating how linguistic insights can improve AI systems. Scientific Recognition: Canada CIFAR AI Chair (2024) Google Ph.D. Fellowship Thesis of Distinction for her doctoral work Multiple Best Paper Nominee awards at major NLP conferences Dr. Shi teaches CS 784: Computational Linguistics and CS 486/686: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence at the University of Waterloo. She actively contributes to the NLP research community through conference participation, program committee service, and collaborative projects. Her research has significant implications for creating more robust, human-like language understanding systems and advancing the field of grounded language learning in artificial intelligence.
Noah Smith is the Amazon Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. He holds adjunct appointments in Linguistics and serves as Senior Director of NLP Research at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Previously an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Smith earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and dual BS/BA degrees from the University of Maryland. His research focuses on developing algorithms for language/music data processing, AI methodology improvement, and human capability augmentation. He co-directs the OLMo open language modeling initiative and leads the NSF/NVIDIA-funded 'Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Science' project. Research spans machine learning foundations, NLP applications, and computational social science methodologies. Smith's publications demonstrate consistent focus on transformer architectures, language model optimization, and AI ethics. Recent work addresses length extrapolation techniques, self-supervised alignment, domain adaptation, toxicity evaluation, and linguistic transfer learning. ACL Fellow (2020) Amazon Alexa Prize (2017) UW Innovation Award (2016-2018) NSF CAREER Award (2011-2016) 15+ best paper awards at major conferences He has graduated 32 PhD students and mentored 18 postdocs, with 28 alumni in faculty positions globally. Leads the Noah's ARK research group and UW NLP lab, focusing on open-source AI infrastructure development.
Jianjing Kuang is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, affiliated with the School of Arts and Sciences. As Director of the Penn Phonetics Laboratory, they lead research in phonetics, laboratory phonology, and tonal language studies. Kuang holds a Ph.D. from UCLA (2013) and specializes in the interplay between production and perception in speech, particularly focusing on tonal systems, prosody, and cross-linguistic fieldwork. Their work integrates behavioral experiments, corpus studies, and computational modeling to explore phonological contrasts, voice quality, and sound change. Key affiliations include MindCORE and the Center for East Asian Studies. Research interests include multidimensional cues in tone processing, glottal articulations, mapping production-perception relationships, and prosodic sentence processing. Kuang has conducted fieldwork on languages such as Yi, Q’anjob’al, and Mandarin. Their studies address topics like tonal splitting in Yi, cue-changing in Korean stops, and prosodic patterns in Mayan languages. Recent work explores voice quality’s role in pitch perception and prosodic boundary detection. Awards and grants are not explicitly listed, but Kuang’s extensive publications (over 50 peer-reviewed papers) reflect sustained academic impact. They advise graduate students in phonetics and phonology, with active collaborations in computational linguistics and speech technology. The Penn Phonetics Laboratory, under Kuang’s direction, emphasizes interdisciplinary research bridging experimental and theoretical phonetics.
Henriëtte Hendriks is a Professor in Language Acquisition and Cognition at the University of Cambridge, affiliated with the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics and the Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (TAL) department. She leads the Cambridge Processing and Acquisition of Language lab (CAMPAL) and serves as Deputy Director of the Centre for Lifelong Learning and Individualised Cognition (CLIC). Education: Sinology at Leiden University Early Career: Coordinator at Max-Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (DFG/ESF projects) Her research explores how languages encode concepts (person, time, space, causality) and their impact on language acquisition. Key themes include: Cognitive Linguistics and Language-Cognition Interfaces First and Second Language Acquisition Mechanisms Multilingualism and Cognitive Flexibility Typological Variation in Semantic Structures Deictic Terms and Dynamic Space Representation Recent publications focus on motion event typology across English, German, French, and Uyghur, examining cross-linguistic influences in acquisition processes. Her work combines experimental methods with syntactic analysis to study semantic mapping and grammaticalization in multilingual contexts. Current projects include: Centre for Lifelong Learning and Individualised Cognition (CLIC) - Principal Investigator MEITS Project (Strand 5) - Co-Investigator Cambridge Language Sciences Incubator projects on cognitive pacing and parental linguistic contributions International DeicTeS project on deictic meaning processes Labs & Teams: Cambridge Processing and Acquisition of Language lab (CAMPAL) Collaborations with Zoe Kourtzi, Vicky Leong, and Clare Hughes
Dr. Simon O'Meara is a Professor at SOAS University of London , serving as Reader in the History of Architecture & Archaeology of the Islamic Middle East and Department Student Support and Experience Convenor. He holds a PhD from the University of Leeds (2004) in Arabic and Islamic Studies, following BA and MA degrees in Art History with a focus on visual theory. Key research areas: Islamic architecture , North African urbanism , material culture , and Islamic visual theory Specializes in analyzing how Islamic religious/legal discourses shape urban spaces and visual culture His publications include two monographs: Space and Muslim Urban Life (2007) on Fez's party walls, and The Kaʿba Orientations (2020) on Mecca's spatial symbolism. Current work examines Quranic exegesis through architectural lenses (2024) and Sufi cosmological centers (2023). PhD supervision topics include: Charlie Oubridge: The Nation in Egyptology Aydin Ozcandan: Ottoman fountains and epigraphs Contact: so20@soas.ac.uk | Office: Room 558, Russell Square: College Buildings
Jiwon Yun is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Stony Brook University. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Cornell University (2013) and a B.S.E. in Computer Science & Engineering from Seoul National University (cum laude with honors). Her research focuses on speech prosody, syntax-semantics interfaces, and computational modeling of sentence processing, with special attention to East Asian languages like Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese. Dr. Yun teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in computational linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, and experimental phonetics. Her work bridges theoretical linguistics and experimental methods, examining how prosody interacts with syntactic and semantic structures. Recent publications investigate prosodic disambiguation of syntactic ambiguities, computational models of relative clause processing, and intonation patterns in Korean and Mandarin. She has developed tools for automated speech corpus analysis and maintains a Hangul-Yale Romanization Converter for linguistic research. Her research has been published in journals like Humanities and Social Sciences Communications , Linguistic Inquiry , and Journal of East Asian Linguistics . Teaching responsibilities include courses such as LIN 335 (Computational Linguistics) and LIN 627 (Computational Semantics).
Dr Aaron D. Hornkohl is an Associate Professor in Hebrew and Bye-Fellow at Girton College, University of Cambridge. He serves as Director of Studies in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Girton and Homerton Colleges. His academic background includes a BA from Biola University, MA from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and PhD (2012) on the linguistic analysis of the Book of Jeremiah. His research focuses on ancient Hebrew philology, linguistic periodization, and exegesis, with a particular interest in the diachronic development of Hebrew and textual criticism of biblical manuscripts. Teaching responsibilities include courses on ancient and modern Hebrew literature, language history, and Middle Eastern culture. He co-organizes initiatives like the Sutton Trust Summer School and leads AHRC-funded research on critical editions of Hebrew texts, including the Kaufmann MS of the Mishna. Recent publications explore Tiberian reading traditions, Masoretic vocalization, and linguistic features in Qumran manuscripts. Research projects include Grammar of Biblical Hebrew Books (2024) and Studies in the Masoretic Tradition (2022). His work bridges linguistic analysis with historical context, addressing questions of language evolution and textual authenticity in Hebrew biblical and rabbinic corpora.
Satoshi Tomioka is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware, affiliated with the College of Arts & Sciences. He holds a B.A. from International Christian University (Tokyo) and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His expertise spans semantics, pragmatics, syntax, and prosody, with a focus on Japanese and comparative East Asian linguistics. Education: B.A. in Liberal Arts (1987), International Christian University; Ph.D. in Linguistics (1997), University of Massachusetts Amherst. Research interests include ellipsis, anaphora, wh-interrogatives, distributivity, and contrastiveness. He investigates how prosody interacts with syntax and semantics in Japanese, exploring topics like focus marking, intervention effects, and scalar implicatures. Recent work examines associative plurals and pragmatic disambiguation in embedded questions. Publications analyze theoretical and empirical questions in linguistic interfaces, such as Bare quotatives as embedded speech acts (2024) and Focus without pitch boost (2022). His work bridges formal semantics and experimental approaches, addressing challenges in cross-linguistic typology and cognitive aspects of language processing.
Elaine J. Francis is a Professor of English and Linguistics at Purdue University, where she also serves as the Associate Head of the Department of English. She holds affiliate appointments in the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. At Purdue, she directs the Experimental Linguistics Lab and teaches linguistics courses at both graduate and undergraduate levels. Francis completed her B.A. in Linguistics at the College of William and Mary in 1993, followed by her M.A. (1995) and Ph.D. (1999) in Linguistics at the University of Chicago under the direction of Salikoko Mufwene. Her dissertation examined variation among members of the same lexical category in English using Sadock's Autolexical Grammar framework. Prior to joining Purdue in 2003, she served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong from 1999 to 2002, where she collaborated with Stephen Matthews on research concerning syntactic categories and relative clauses in Cantonese. Her research focuses on syntax and its interfaces with semantics, discourse information structure, and language processing in production and comprehension. Francis employs experimental methods to investigate syntactic, semantic, discourse-pragmatic, and cognitive factors underlying the grammar and usage of complex sentence structures. Her specific interests include word order alternations, filler-gap dependencies, resumptive pronouns, relative clauses, grammatical categories, and syntactic alternations. She has published extensively in top linguistics journals including Language and Cognition, Glossa Psycholinguistics, Linguistics, Lingua, Cognitive Linguistics, and the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. Analyzing her recent publications reveals a consistent focus on experimental approaches to syntactic phenomena. Her work demonstrates a strong interest in gradient acceptability, syntactic priming, cross-linguistic comparison (particularly involving English and Cantonese), and the relationship between grammatical theory and language processing. Her 2022 book Gradient Acceptability and Linguistic Theory represents a major contribution that synthesizes experimental findings with theoretical linguistics frameworks. Francis plays an active role in the broader linguistics community. She regularly teaches short courses at the Linguistic Society of America Linguistic Institutes, serves on the LSA Ethics Committee, and is on the editorial board of Glossa Psycholinguistics. She has also edited several books and special journal issues, including Mismatch: Form-Function Incongruity and the Architecture of Grammar (2003) and Polymorphous Linguistics: Jim McCawley's Legacy (2005). As an educator and administrator, Francis has supervised numerous graduate students and currently serves as Associate Head of the Department of English at Purdue. Her Experimental Linguistics Lab provides research opportunities for students interested in the intersection of theoretical syntax and experimental methodology. While she recently announced she will not be accepting new graduate students for the 2025-2026 cycle, her established mentorship record demonstrates her commitment to training the next generation of linguists. The Experimental Linguistics Lab, which she directs, serves as a hub for research combining theoretical linguistics with experimental methods. Her collaborative work extends across disciplines, including collaborations with researchers in speech-language pathology, cognitive science, and computational linguistics, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of modern linguistic research.
Kyle Johnson is a Professor and Curriculum Committee Chair in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, located in Integrative Learning Center N440. He holds a BA in Psychology from the University of California-Irvine (1981) and a PhD in Linguistics from MIT (1985). His research focuses on formal syntactic theory, particularly the interaction between syntax and prosody/semantics, with attention to real-time sentence processing evidence. He has taught at multiple institutions including UC-Irvine, UCLA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and McGill University before joining UMass. Current courses include LING 301 (Introduction to Syntax) and LING 601 (Transformational Grammar). His work emphasizes syntactic derivations, linearization, ellipsis phenomena (gapping, stripping), and the empirical adequacy of formal syntactic theories. Selected recent contributions include analyses of Principle B derivation, prosodic spell-out mechanisms, and theta-role theory. He maintains an active publication schedule with over three decades of work in top journals like Linguistic Inquiry and Nordlyd , addressing topics ranging from adjunct islands to multidominant movement theories. His research combines theoretical innovation with experimental plausibility, often challenging traditional assumptions in generative syntax. Teaching responsibilities include both undergraduate and graduate syntax courses, with supplementary materials like Transformational Grammar lecture notes and a comprehensive bib file for researchers. Office hours are scheduled via his online calendar with a preference for in-person meetings.
