Find Academic Supervisors

Adriana KovashkaView profile

Associate Professor

• Computer Vision
• Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing
• +7 more

Adriana Kovashka is an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh , affiliated with the School of Computing and Information and serving as Department Chair . Her academic journey began with BA degrees in Computer Science and Media Studies from Pomona College (2008) and a PhD in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin (2014). Joined Pitt’s faculty in January 2015 NSF CAREER awardee (2021) Google Faculty Research Award recipient Dr. Kovashka’s research spans Computer Vision , Machine Learning , and Natural Language Processing , focusing on visual rhetoric, weak multimodal supervision, and domain adaptation. She pioneered techniques for analyzing political imagery, developing robust object detection frameworks, and exploring the intersection of visual and textual persuasion through large-scale annotated datasets. Her recent work emphasizes geographic diversity in vision-language systems, audio-visual fusion for domain generalization, and shape-texture bias mitigation in CNNs. Key publications include groundbreaking studies on symbolic reasoning, multimodal dialogue systems, and ethical AI applications in education. Scientific honors include: NSF CRII Award (2016) NSF CAREER Award (2021) Pitt CRDF Award (2016, 2018) Best Paper at ECV Workshop (2021) Google Faculty Research Award (2016, 2018) Dr. Kovashka actively mentors students in multimodal learning projects and collaborates with interdisciplinary teams on NSF-funded initiatives. She co-organizes workshops like the first CVPR workshop on advertisement understanding and leads research groups exploring human-AI co-learning systems.

Genesea M. CarterView profile

Associate Professor

• Rhetoric and Composition
• Academic Administration
• Curriculum Development
• +3 more

Genesea M. Carter serves as the Associate Director of Composition and Associate Professor in the English and University Composition Program at Colorado State University. She holds a PhD from the University of New Mexico. Her research focuses on administrative systems in higher education, including curriculum design, teacher training, and workload equity, and their impact on instructors’ well-being. She also investigates how students from diverse backgrounds navigate academia, with a focus on working-class pedagogy and identity development. Her recent co-edited collection Systems Shift: Creating and Navigating Change in Rhetoric and Composition Administration (2023) addresses institutional transformation. Earlier work includes Class in the Composition Classroom: Pedagogy and the Working Class (2017), exploring socioeconomic diversity in education. Her articles span topics like digital literacy, interdisciplinary pedagogy, and critical theory in composition studies. Dr. Carter’s scholarship emphasizes equity, intersectionality, and dismantling neoliberal structures in academia. She has contributed to journals such as Composition Studies , Journal of Teaching Writing , and Open Words , and her work bridges practical administration with theoretical frameworks in rhetoric and composition.

Ruihong HuangView profile

Associate Professor

• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Information Extraction
• Machine Learning
• +6 more

Ruihong Huang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, part of the College of Engineering. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Utah (2014) and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. Her research focuses on Natural Language Processing (NLP) with emphasis on information extraction, event recognition, media bias analysis, and ethical AI applications. She teaches courses like Information Storage and Retrieval (CSCE 470), Natural Language Processing (CSCE 638), and has advised numerous PhD, Master’s, and undergraduate students. Key research contributions include work on event coreference resolution, discourse analysis, and detecting media bias through event relation graphs. Huang has developed benchmark datasets like UAL-Bench and EMONA, and her work spans applications in disaster management, fake news detection, and moral reasoning in LLMs. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and serves on program committees for top conferences like ACL and EMNLP. Her academic service includes roles as Area Chair for ACL 2024 and Senior Area Chair for EMNLP 2024. She maintains an active lab group focusing on NLP fundamentals and real-world applications, with projects involving propaganda identification, polarity calibration for opinion summarization, and multimodal dialog act classification. Huang has published over 80 papers in top-tier venues such as NAACL, EMNLP, ACL, and NeurIPS.

• Discourse Analysis
• Political Communication
• Multimodal Analysis
• +3 more

Maslathif Dwi Purnomo is affiliated with Charles Sturt University, serving as a PhD co-supervisor within the Gulbali Research Institute under the discipline of Social Work and Arts. His role involves internal HDR supervision, contributing to advanced research training and academic mentorship. His research interests center on the intersection of language, politics, and power, with a regional focus on Indonesia. Key areas include: Discourse and political communication Multimodal analysis of public speeches Sociolinguistics and language in institutional power Indonesian political discourse, especially presidential rhetoric The supervision activity recorded indicates engagement in high-level academic mentoring, particularly in qualitative and critical linguistic approaches to political events. While no publications are listed, the thematic focus of the supervised thesis suggests strong expertise in linguistic analysis of political narratives. He has contributed to national-level research recognition through supervisory roles, though no scientific awards are documented. His academic service includes mentoring HDR candidates, specifically co-supervising research on President Jokowi's speeches. Maslathif Dwi Purnomo is associated with the Gulbali Research Institute, a multidisciplinary research center focusing on social impact, equity, and community engagement, particularly in regional Australia and Southeast Asia.

• Multimodal Discourse Analysis
• Systemic Functional Linguistics
• Digital Humanities
• +6 more

Professor Kay O'Halloran serves as Chair Professor and Head of Department of Communication and Media within the School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool since August 2019. She concurrently holds the position of Co-Director for the Digital Media and Society Institute (DMSI), demonstrating significant leadership across academic and research domains. Her career spans prestigious institutions including Curtin University (2013-2019) and National University of Singapore (1998-2013), where she directed the Multimodal Analysis Lab and served as Deputy Director of the Interactive & Digital Media Institute. PhD from Murdoch University (1996) Postdoctoral position at Martin Luther University (1997-1998) Visiting Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University (2017-2020) Professor O'Halloran's research focuses on multimodal discourse analysis, particularly the interaction of language with visual and mathematical resources. Her pioneering work in systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) has significantly impacted mathematics education and digital communication studies. Current research emphasizes digital tools for multimodal analysis and mixed methods approaches to big data analytics, addressing contemporary challenges in misinformation and public health communication. Her recent publications reveal strong thematic concentration in pandemic-related communication analysis, misinformation resistance mechanisms, and multimodal argumentation across social and cultural contexts. The 15 most recent articles demonstrate consistent application of multimodal frameworks to urgent societal issues including public health crises, political discourse, and digital literacy challenges. Founding editor of Routledge Studies in Multimodality book series (57+ volumes) Over 150 publications in leading international journals 50+ plenary/keynote presentations globally Competitive funding from National Research Foundation, MOE Singapore, US Air Force, ARC, NHMRC, and others Professor O'Halloran has directed interdisciplinary research teams comprising social scientists, computer scientists, and designers. Her leadership extends to developing commercial multimodal analysis software (Multimodal Analysis Image and Video) adopted internationally. Current projects include Eurovision 2023 wellbeing evaluation and COVID-19 misinformation immunity development, demonstrating continued relevance to contemporary societal challenges.

Michael BurkeView profile

Professor

• Rhetoric
• Stylistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• +5 more

Professor Michael Burke holds a full professorship in Rhetoric at Utrecht University (Faculty of Humanities) and teaches at University College Roosevelt (UCR) in Middelburg. Previously, he served as UU Honours Dean (2016–2021). His research focuses on rhetoric, stylistics, cognitive aspects of language, and education. He earned his Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Amsterdam, where he also completed his undergraduate studies. Research interests span written, oral, and digital rhetoric, emphasizing pedagogical, cognitive, stylistic, and neuroscientific dimensions. He has held visiting roles at institutions like the University of Cambridge and University of Bologna. Editorial roles include series editor for Routledge’s 'Research Monographs in Linguistics' and board memberships with journals like Language and Literature . Teaching includes undergraduate courses on classical rhetoric, argumentation, and public speaking at UCR, plus leadership and interdisciplinary research modules for Utrecht’s Honours College. He supervises PhD students in the UiL-OTS linguistics research school. Notable publications include The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics (2023) and studies on critical thinking, digital literacy, and cognitive literary science. Professional activities include keynote speaking at conferences like PCST and EARS, and contributions to projects such as ‘Undergraduate Research in the Netherlands’. His work bridges rhetoric, cognitive science, and education, emphasizing practical applications for students and educators.

David MimnoView profile

Associate Professor

• Natural Language Processing
• Machine Learning
• Computational Social Science
• +4 more

David Mimno is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Information Science at Cornell University. He holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and previously worked at the Perseus Project and Princeton University. His research focuses on computational social science, natural language processing, and historical text analysis. Mimno is known for developing the MALLET toolkit, a widely used Java-based platform for machine learning in text processing. He teaches courses such as INFO 4940: How LLMs Work and INFO 6150/CS 6788: Advanced Topic Modeling. His work has been supported by the Sloan Foundation, NEH, and NSF. Mimno advises PhD students in Information Science and Computer Science, emphasizing interdisciplinary research at the intersection of computing and humanities/social sciences. He also contributes to initiatives like AI for Humanists, making large language models accessible for text-as-data research. Bachelor’s degree: Not explicitly stated in text PhD: University of Massachusetts Amherst Research Interests: Mimno explores large language models, topic modeling, cross-lingual semantics, and ethical AI applications in humanities and legal domains. His recent work addresses data curation practices for language models, LLM memorization of poetry, and generative AI’s societal impacts. He co-authored reports on generative AI in academic research and education. Grants & Collaborations: His projects include the Text as Data (TADA) conference and collaborations on generative AI law workshops. Mimno’s MALLET toolkit supports document classification, clustering, and topic modeling, with applications in cultural analytics and computational historiography.

Courtney RivardView profile

Assistant Professor

• Digital Humanities
• Digital Rhetorics
• Critical Game Studies
• +3 more

Courtney Rivard is an Assistant Professor in English & Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with a secondary appointment at the School of Data Science & Society. She directs the Digital Literacy and Communications (DLC) Lab, focusing on digital humanities, critical game studies, and archival rhetorics. Her research bridges rhetoric, digital methods, and social justice, examining how archives and digital tools shape narratives around race, gender, and national identity. Dr. Rivard holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2012). Her book Layered Lives (2022) combines archival and computational methods to analyze Depression-era life histories. She has secured grants from NEH, ACLS, and UNC initiatives, supporting projects like the Critical Gaming Initiative and oral history archives on PFAS contamination. Her teaching emphasizes digital literacy and public engagement, including courses on data rhetoric, game studies, and multimodal composition. The DLC Lab hosts the Greenlaw Gameroom, a game-based classroom funded by Lenovo, fostering critical pedagogies through play. Research Labs: Digital Literacy and Communications Lab, Greenlaw Gameroom Grants: NEH, ACLS Digital Extension Grant, UNC Arts & Humanities Fellowships Key Projects: Critical Gaming Initiative, Photogrammar collaboration, “Forever Chemicals” oral history archive

Sumin ZhaoView profile

Associate Professor

• Discourse Analysis
• Multimodality
• Social Semiotics
• +7 more

Dr. Sumin Zhao is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Discourse Analysis at the University of Edinburgh's School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences. She holds a PhD in text linguistics from the University of Sydney and has held prestigious fellowships at the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Technology Sydney. Her research focuses on multimodal discourse analysis, social semiotics, and digital literacies, with particular attention to social media practices, immigrant families, and children's digital engagement. Education: PhD in Text Linguistics (Hallidayan tradition), University of Sydney Postdoctoral Fellowships at University of Southern Denmark (2016-2018) and University of Technology Sydney (2013-2016) Research Interests: Analysis of social media genres (e.g., selfies, shelfies, video-sharing platforms) Multimodal communication in transnational families Children's digital literacy practices and translanguaging Semiotic technologies in education and cultural studies Projects & Grants: Lead investigator for the PPLS Small Project Grant on emoji analysis (2021-2022) Pilot study on transnational family storytelling via social media (2020-2021) Awards: Carlsberg Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship (2016-2018) Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship (2013-2016) Supervision & Labs: Supervises PhD students researching social media influencers, digital parenting, and transnational literacy practices Member of the International Collective of Research and Design in Children's Digital Books (www.childrensdigitalbooks.com)

Angela CrowView profile

Associate Professor

• Design
• User Experience (UX)
• Freedom of Movement
• +7 more

Angela Crow is an Associate Professor at James Madison University (JMU) in the School of Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication, where she has served since 2012. Her research bridges literacy studies, design, and urban mobility, focusing on how communities advocate for car-free infrastructure and equitable public spaces. She explores the role of digital communication in fostering feminist interventions, particularly around cycling advocacy and street design. Her work intersects with gender studies, urban studies, and rhetorical theory. Educated at the University of Kansas (Ph.D., 1997) and Point Loma College (B.A., 1987), she has authored books on writing programs and composition studies, including Aging Literacies (2006) and Field of Dreams (2002). Recent publications analyze surveillance, privacy in digital contexts, and transportation equity. Her research often highlights marginalized voices in shaping public discourse. Research Interests: Her current projects examine embodied literacies in mobility advocacy, social media practices of grassroots movements, and the rhetoric of urban infrastructure. She critiques car-centric planning through feminist and critical frameworks, emphasizing accessibility and safety for non-car users. Her work also addresses aging populations’ digital literacies and the intersection of technology with social inequality. Publications: Her articles span rhetorical analysis of social movements, educational assessment frameworks, and the sociotechnical dimensions of writing. Recent trends include collaborations on privacy in big data and participatory design for community mobility.

Adriana I. KovashkaView profile

Associate Professor

• Computer Vision
• Machine Learning
• Image Retrieval
• +4 more

Adriana I. Kovashka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Computing and Information. She serves as Chair of the Department of Computer Science. Her research focuses on computer vision, machine learning, and their intersections with human-machine communication and visual rhetoric analysis. Kovashka earned her BA in Computer Science and Media Studies from Pomona College (2008) and her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin (2014). She joined Pitt in 2015. Her work emphasizes improving image retrieval systems through semantic attributes, human-in-the-loop feedback, and crowd-sourced data. Notable projects include analyzing advertisements' persuasive strategies, developing object detection models resilient to domain shifts, and exploring multimodal learning with linguistic and visual inputs. She has secured significant grants, including NSF awards for geographic diversity in object detection (2023), CAREER funding for weak supervision methods (2021), and multiple Google Faculty Research Awards. Kovashka advises PhD students on topics ranging from multimodal intent modeling to domain generalization. She has organized workshops on advertising understanding and subjective attributes in vision conferences. Her lab's datasets, such as the 64,832-image ad repository and video ad collections, are widely used in vision research. Recent efforts include quantifying perceptual diversity in multilingual systems and mitigating bias in CNNs through shape regularization. Awards and recognitions include the NSF CAREER Award, Pitt's CRDF grants, and leadership roles in CVPR and WACV conferences. Her research bridges technical innovation with societal impact, addressing challenges in visual communication, ethical AI, and educational robotics.

• African Diaspora Literacies
• Discourse Studies
• Gender and Literacy Studies
• +3 more

Dr. Elaine Richardson is a Professor of Literacy Studies in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. Her work focuses on African Diasporic literacies, discourse studies, and gender studies. She holds a B.A. and M.A. from Cleveland State University and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University. B.A. and M.A., Cleveland State University Ph.D., Michigan State University Her research explores language, literacy, and discourse practices in Afro-diasporic communities, with emphases on sociolinguistics and critical discourse analysis. She co-edited key texts like Understanding African American Rhetoric and Hiphop Literacies , and her outreach includes youth empowerment projects. Notable awards include the Cleveland State University Distinguished Alumni Award (2007) and Fulbright Scholar Award (2004). Her work bridges academia and community through projects like cultural literacy initiatives and hip hop education networks.

• Computational Linguistics
• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Dependency Parsing
• +5 more

Joakim Nivre is a Professor at Uppsala University's Department of Linguistics and Philology. He is a leading researcher in computational linguistics, with a focus on dependency parsing, Universal Dependencies (UD) framework development, and multilingual NLP applications. His recent work explores LLMs in climate change discourse analysis, pharmacovigilance explainability, and historical text processing. Key research areas: Dependency parsing theory, Universal Dependencies standardization, LLM evaluation Collaborations: SweSAT-1.0 benchmark development, ClimateEval project, PARSEME integration His 2025-2023 publications demonstrate expertise in explainable AI for healthcare, synthetic data generation for idioms, and multilingual benchmark design. Notably, he co-developed SweSAT-1.0 to evaluate Swedish LLMs and contributed to typology-informed UD revisions. Despite extensive work in NLP, no scientific awards are mentioned in available texts.

Axel BrunsView profile

Research Professor

• Media and Communication Studies
• Social Media Analytics
• Political Polarization
• +3 more

Professor Axel Bruns is a Research Professor at Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), an institution renowned for its leadership in media and communication studies. His work focuses on the digital transformation of media, the role of social media in public communication, and the dynamics of political polarization in online environments. Bruns is an internationally recognized innovator in computational methods for social media analysis, emphasizing interdisciplinary mixed-methods approaches to study complex societal phenomena. Research Interests: His research addresses critical challenges such as polarization’s threat to democracy, the role of algorithms in shaping public discourse, and the spread of disinformation. Notable areas include filter bubbles, platform governance, and the interplay between social media and political systems. He has pioneered concepts like 'gatewatching' to analyze news curation practices of digital intermediaries. Key Achievements: Bruns leads a prestigious Australian Laureate Fellowship project examining polarization drivers and dynamics. His work combines rigorous methodological innovation with policy relevance, evidenced by submissions to parliamentary committees on social media regulation. He has mentored numerous doctoral students who have become leading methodologists in their fields. Awards and Collaborations: Recipient of the Australian Laureate Fellowship (2023), Bruns collaborates widely with institutions globally, including Algorithm Watch, the Centre for Responsible Technology, and the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society. These partnerships enable cross-border research into digital media’s societal impacts.

Hong HuaqingView profile

Professor

• Corpus Linguistics
• Computer-Assisted Instruction
• Machine Translation
• +3 more

Hong Huaqing is a Professor and doctoral supervisor at the Corpus Research Institute of Shanghai International Studies University. He holds roles as honorary director of the Chinese Corpus Linguistics Research Association and international expert at Peking University's Education Development Center. Formerly, he worked at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) in roles such as researcher at the Learning Research and Development Center and director of the e-Learning Center of the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. His research spans machine translation, natural language processing, corpus linguistics, and educational technology. He supervises master's and doctoral students, co-supervises postdoctoral researchers, and focuses on smart education driven by big data analysis and innovative learning ecosystems. Research emphasizes corpus-based methods applied to language education, including computational frameworks for student engagement, wearable sensors in learning analytics, and cross-linguistic rhetoric studies. His work bridges technological innovation (e.g., AI-driven tutorial systems) with pedagogical practice, addressing challenges in non-English language education and teacher training.