Find Academic Supervisors

Michael LuceyView profile

Professor

• French Literature
• Comparative Literature
• Sexuality Studies
• +7 more

Michael Lucey is the Sidney and Margaret Ancker Chair and Distinguished Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. His work bridges French literature from the 19th to 21st centuries with social theory, sexuality studies, and linguistic anthropology. He has authored the critically acclaimed What Proust Heard: Novels and the Ethnography of Talk (2022) and Thinking about Sexuality with Novels (forthcoming). As founding director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture , he has shaped interdisciplinary research in queer theory and gender studies. Current research focuses on novels as ethnographic tools Specializes in Proust, Balzac, Woolf, and contemporary French fiction Translation work includes Didier Eribon and Édouard Louis His recent articles explore phonetics in narrative, readability frameworks, and sociological implications of literary form. He actively engages with comparative methodologies and critical theory, while his teaching spans British and American literature’s intersections with French modernism. Lucey’s academic leadership includes directing Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, which supports global discourse through fellowships and conferences. His office hours are held in Dwinelle Hall and via Zoom. Contact: mlucey@berkeley.edu

Alane SuhrView profile

Assistant Professor

• Natural Language Processing
• Machine Learning
• Computer Vision
• +5 more

Alane Suhr is an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) department and a member of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab (BAIR). Her research focuses on natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and computer vision, emphasizing systems that interact with humans through language. She designs models and datasets for language grounding (e.g., NLVR) and develops algorithms for learning through interaction. Education: PhD in Computer Science, Cornell University (2022), advised by Yoav Artzi Bachelor's in Computer Science and Engineering, Ohio State University (2016), with a Linguistics minor Research Interests: Interactive systems for collaborative language use (e.g., CerealBar) Language grounding in multimodal contexts Embodied agents and reinforcement learning Generalization in NLP and the role of language in learning Key Contributions: Developed the NLVR dataset for visual reasoning with natural language Pioneered work on SWE-Gym for training software engineering agents Contributed to research on language models' sensitivity and commonsense reasoning Awards: ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award (2022) Outstanding Paper Awards at ACL 2023 and EMNLP 2021 Professional Activities: Organized workshops at ICML, NeurIPS, and ACL on topics like agents, generalization, and theory of mind Active in academic outreach and conference speaking (e.g., ICML, NeurIPS, CVPR) Labs/Teams: Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab SWE-Gym research group

Raquel FernándezView profile

Professor

• Computational Linguistics
• Dialogue Systems
• Cognitive Science
• +3 more

Raquel Fernández is Full Professor of Computational Linguistics and Dialogue Systems at the University of Amsterdam, where she leads the Dialogue Modelling Group at the Institute for Logic, Language & Computation (ILLC). As Vice-Director for Research at ILLC and a Fellow of the ELLIS Society, she bridges computational linguistics, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence through her research on language use in multimodal and conversational contexts. PhD in Computational Linguistics from King's College London Prior research positions at University of Potsdam and Stanford University's CSLI Her work explores how cognitive constraints, social interaction, and perception shape language use, with a focus on: Visually-grounded language processing Multimodal dialogue modeling Model uncertainty and calibration Language grounding in multimodal data Language learning and semantic change Dialogue reference resolution Recent publications analyze multimodal reasoning limitations, cross-lingual knowledge consistency, and uncertainty modeling in dialogue systems. She has received multiple accolades including an ERC Consolidator Grant , NWO VENI/VIDI/Aspasia fellowships , and EMNLP/GenBench awards . Outstanding Paper Award (EMNLP 2023) Best Data Award (GenBench Workshop 2023) ELLIS Society Fellow ERC Consolidator Grant #819455 recipient NWO VENI/VIDI/Aspasia awardee As a leader in academic service, she serves on the SIGDAT Executive Committee and chairs multiple conference committees. Her lab develops models for multimodal dialogue, visual storytelling, and grounded language understanding.

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Cognition
• Neuroscience
• +7 more

Professor Heather Ferguson is a distinguished cognitive psychologist at the University of Kent's School of Psychology, where she has built an impressive academic career since her appointment as Lecturer in 2009. Promoted to Professor in 2018, she leads groundbreaking research examining the cognitive basis of social communication across the lifespan. Her work bridges cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and social cognition, with particular expertise in perspective-taking, theory of mind, and the interface between cognitive processes and social interaction. Her research primarily investigates how we access and represent other people's perspectives during communication, using methodologies including eye-tracking, EEG, and reaction time measurements. Key questions driving her work include: How do people understand and predict events based on others' mental states? What happens when these conflict with our own knowledge? How do social abilities relate to cognitive skills like memory and inhibitory control? How does aging affect social cognition? Her work has significant implications for understanding autism spectrum disorder, social development, and cognitive aging. Professor Ferguson's recent publications reveal a strong focus on perspective-taking across the lifespan, social cognition in autism, the cognitive effects of fiction reading, and the neural mechanisms underlying empathy. Her research demonstrates consistent methodological rigor through pre-registered studies and meta-analyses, with particular attention to developmental trajectories from adolescence through older adulthood. Psychonomic Society Early Career Award (2019) Open Science Framework Pre-registration Challenge award (2018) Cognitive Neuroscience Society Postdoctoral Fellow Award (2018) University of Kent Prize for Research (2016) Kent Union Teaching Award for 'Best Teacher' (2012) Professor Ferguson actively supervises multiple PhD students and has secured substantial research funding, including a €1.5 million ERC Starting Grant and multiple Leverhulme Trust grants. Her work with the Cognitive basis of Social Communication and Ageing (COGSOCOAGE) research group has produced influential findings on social cognition across the lifespan. She serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition and on the editorial board of Cognition, while also mentoring early-career researchers through the Eastern Arc Mentoring Scheme.

Shih-Fu ChangView profile

Professor

• Computer Vision
• Machine Learning
• Multimedia Information Retrieval
• +3 more

Shih-Fu Chang is the Dean of Columbia Engineering and holds the Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professorship at Columbia University. His research focuses on computer vision, machine learning, and multimedia information retrieval. He is recognized as a foundational figure in the field of content-based visual search and has pioneered innovations in image/video search engines, crime prevention systems, and brain-machine interfaces. His leadership roles include Chair of Columbia's Electrical Engineering Department (2007-2010), Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2006-2008), and Senior Executive Vice Dean at Columbia Engineering, where he drives strategic planning and international collaboration. Dr. Chang has received prestigious awards including the ACM Multimedia Technical Achievement Award, IEEE Signal Processing Technical Achievement Award, and IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award. He is a Fellow of AAAS, ACM, and IEEE, and an Academician of Academia Sinica. His recent work emphasizes multimodal reasoning, few-shot learning, and vision-language systems, with applications in healthcare diagnostics and multimedia benchmarking. His research spans cross-modal understanding, event extraction, and adaptive AI systems. Key contributions include systems like Ferret-v2 for multimodal grounding and RESIN for schema-guided event tracking. He has advised multiple startups and actively contributes to curriculum development in AI and engineering education.

Apala DasView profile

Research Fellow

• 20th-century global anglophone literatures
• modernist poetry and poetics
• postsecularism studies
• +4 more

Dr. Apala Das is a Research Fellow at Bilkent University, specializing in 20th-century global anglophone literatures, modernist poetry and poetics, and postsecularism studies. Her academic work bridges postcolonial theory, South Asian literatures, and political theology within transnational frameworks. Her educational background includes a PhD from the University of Toronto, completed in 2024. Dr. Das's research centers on modernist asceticism as a critical lens for examining literary experiments by figures like Rabindranath Tagore, Hilda Doolittle, Aurobindo Ghose, and May Sinclair. She investigates how these writers negotiated ascetical ideals within colonial and postcolonial contexts, connecting literary form to biopolitics, secular citizenship, and ethno-nationalist ideologies. Her approach synthesizes postcolonial ethics, comparative literature, and political theology to analyze transnational modernist aesthetics. Her publications from 2018-2024 reveal consistent engagement with mobility, hybridity, and spiritual dimensions across literary traditions. Early work analyzed mobility in ethnography and Romantic-era travel, evolving toward contemporary meta-minimalist fiction and systematic studies of asceticism in global modernism. Dr. Das has received significant recognition for her scholarship: Ontario Graduate Scholarship (awarded twice) Chancellor Jackman Junior Fellowship from the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto Khashu Award for Tagore Studies from the Institute for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley As a recent PhD graduate, she has not yet taken on formal graduate advising roles. Her research has been supported by competitive doctoral grants including the Ontario Graduate Scholarships and Chancellor Jackman Junior Fellowship, with current work funded through the Bilkent University/British Institute at Ankara Joint Fellowship. Dr. Das is actively developing her book manuscript "Modernist Asceticisms: Discipline, Form, and the Postsecular in the Transnational Twentieth Century" while participating in academic initiatives like the 2024 book launch for "Mind and Embodiment in Late Victorian Literature".

Maria Silvia SaraisView profile

Lecturer

• Latin Poetry
• Greek and Roman Drama
• Seneca
• +5 more

Maria Silvia Sarais serves as a Lecturer within the Department of Classical and Oriental Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY), where she contributes to both undergraduate and graduate programs in Classical Studies. Her academic profile centers on advanced instruction and research in ancient Mediterranean civilizations, with particular emphasis on literary analysis and cultural interpretation. Her research portfolio encompasses a sophisticated interdisciplinary range of classical scholarship: Latin Poetry, examining stylistic innovations and socio-political contexts in Roman verse Greek and Roman Drama, analyzing theatrical conventions and performance traditions Seneca studies, focusing on philosophical contributions and literary techniques Ancient Literary Criticism, investigating early theoretical frameworks for textual analysis Poetic Theory and Metapoetics, exploring self-referential elements in classical composition Classical Mythology and Contemporary Reception, tracing evolutionary adaptations of mythic narratives Gender and Ethnicity in Classical Literature, interrogating identity construction and representation in antiquity No scientific awards or honors were documented in the provided materials. While the available information does not specify doctoral or master's students under her supervision, nor detail external research funding sources, her role as Doctoral Lecturer indicates active engagement in advanced academic mentorship within Hunter College's graduate program structure. There is no reference to dedicated research laboratories, collaborative teams, or specialized research centers associated with her current academic position.

• Artificial Intelligence
• Deep Learning
• Recurrent Neural Networks
• +12 more

Juergen Schmidhuber is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Informatics of Università della Svizzera italiana and a leading researcher at the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA USI-SUPSI). He is also Chief Scientist at NNAISENSE, a company dedicated to building practical general-purpose AI. His work has profoundly influenced modern artificial intelligence, particularly through the development of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks in 1991, now deployed across billions of devices for speech recognition, machine translation, and virtual assistants. His research interests span Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Recurrent Neural Networks, Universal AI, Meta-Learning, Algorithmic Information Theory, Artificial Curiosity, Robotics , and Low-Complexity Art . He has pioneered mathematically rigorous frameworks for self-improving AI systems and formal theories of creativity and beauty. His work bridges theoretical foundations with real-world applications in computer vision, natural language processing, and autonomous robotics. The recent articles reflect a consistent trajectory of innovation, combining deep theoretical insights with scalable machine learning architectures. His publications emphasize sequence modeling, universal learning, intrinsic motivation, and computational creativity , demonstrating both foundational contributions and industrial impact. From LSTM to Goedel machines, his work consistently targets the long-term goal of self-improving general AI. Scientific Awards: Numerous awards in AI and machine learning (specific names not listed) Schmidhuber leads a research group at IDSIA, where he mentors students and researchers in advancing the frontiers of AI. His lab has secured significant recognition and industrial collaboration, though specific grants are not detailed. He promotes the 'New AI'—general, sound, and relevant to physics—and continues to explore the convergence of intelligence, computation, and the universe. Labs and Teams: Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA USI-SUPSI) NNAISENSE (as Chief Scientist)

Patrick SturtView profile

Associate Professor

• Psycholinguistics
• Syntactic processing
• Language comprehension
• +5 more

Patrick Sturt is a Reader in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh's School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. His research focuses on syntactic processing in language comprehension, computational models of incremental parsing, anaphor resolution, and eye movements in reading. With over 100 publications and more than 3,300 citations, he is a recognized expert in psycholinguistics and language processing. Dr. Sturt's research interests span multiple areas of language processing. He investigates how humans comprehend sentences in real-time, with particular focus on syntactic structures, agreement phenomena, and anaphoric reference. His work often employs eye-tracking methodologies to examine the moment-by-moment processing of linguistic information. He has made significant contributions to understanding how readers handle syntactic ambiguities, garden-path sentences, and the role of prediction in language comprehension. His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on cross-linguistic studies, particularly examining language processing in Mandarin Chinese and Korean. Many of his studies investigate how syntactic and semantic information interact during comprehension, and how linguistic structures like honorifics, classifiers, and non-canonical word orders are processed. His work bridges theoretical linguistics with experimental psycholinguistics, providing empirical evidence for models of sentence processing. Dr. Sturt actively supervises PhD students including Carine Abraham, Wenjia Cai, Chiuchou Hao, Ruomeng Zhu, and Christy Gu. He teaches Psychology of Language 1 and 2 at the MSc level, as well as Data Analysis for Psychology in R for first-year undergraduates. His teaching reflects his research expertise, providing students with both theoretical knowledge and practical analytical skills. Based in Room G29 of the Psychology Building at 7 George Square, Edinburgh, Dr. Sturt maintains regular office hours on Tuesdays from 3-4pm, providing accessibility to students and colleagues. His email address is patrick.sturt@ed.ac.uk.

Yanli LinView profile

Assistant Professor

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Mindfulness
• Emotion Regulation
• +7 more

Yanli Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology within the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Arkansas. She holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Cognitive Neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis (2020–2024). Position: Assistant Professor Institution: University of Arkansas School: College of Arts & Sciences Department: Psychology Email: yanlil@uark.edu Her research focuses on understanding how mindfulness and contemplative practices influence attention, emotion regulation, cognition, and interpersonal behavior, with an emphasis on the mind-brain-behavior relationship. She employs cognitive neuroscience methods, including EEG and statistical modeling, to investigate neural and behavioral effects of meditation in both health promotion and clinical contexts. Her interdisciplinary approach integrates insights from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and religious studies. The recent publications highlight a consistent trend in studying distinct mindfulness states—particularly focused attention and open monitoring—on neural markers of emotion and cognitive control. Her work employs within-subject designs and advanced electrophysiological techniques to parse subtle differences in mindfulness-induced brain dynamics. These studies contribute to a growing understanding of how specific meditation practices can be precisely targeted for therapeutic applications. She has been recognized with several prestigious awards: NIH/NIA F32 National Research Service Award WUSTL McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience SGP Award Mind & Life Institute Francisco J. Varela Research Award Dr. Lin advises graduate students and leads a research laboratory focused on mindfulness and cognitive neuroscience. While specific grant details are not listed, her award history suggests active external funding. Her lab uses EEG and behavioral experimentation to explore how meditation shapes cognition and emotion, contributing to the scientific foundation for mindfulness-based interventions.

Yu MengView profile

Assistant Professor

• Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing
• Data Mining
• +3 more

Yu Meng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia (UVA), part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He joined UVA in 2024 as a tenure-track faculty member. His research focuses on machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and data mining, with recent emphasis on large language models (LLMs), alignment, reliability, and ethical AI development. Educated at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Meng earned his Ph.D. in 2023 under advisor Jiawei Han. His doctoral thesis, Efficient and Effective Learning of Text Representations , received the ACM SIGKDD 2024 Dissertation Award. He also held a visiting researcher position at Princeton University under Danqi Chen and was a Google PhD Fellow. His work has been recognized with awards including the Superalignment Fast Grant from OpenAI and notable publications at venues like NeurIPS, ICLR, and ACL. Meng’s research explores topics such as preference optimization (SimPO), retrieval-augmented generation (InstructRAG), and zero-shot learning. He actively serves on program committees for top conferences (ICLR, ICML, NeurIPS) and as an action editor for Transactions of Machine Learning Research (TMLR) . He teaches graduate-level courses on NLP, emphasizing cutting-edge LLM topics like architecture design, instruction tuning, and ethical considerations. Key achievements include contributions to LLM alignment via retrieval optimization, efficient pretraining techniques, and foundational work on weakly supervised learning. His research bridges theory and practice, addressing both technical challenges and societal impacts of AI systems.

Sara HodgesView profile

Professor

• Social Psychology
• Personality Psychology
• Perspective Taking
• +4 more

Dr. Sara Hodges is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon , affiliated with the Social and Affective Interpersonal Lab (SAIL). Her research focuses on how individuals understand others' minds, emphasizing self-referential strategies, contextual influences, and cognitive limitations. Academic Rank: Professor Contact: sdhodges@uoregon.edu Research Focus Dr. Hodges investigates: Mechanisms of perspective taking and empathic accuracy Self-referential strategies like projection and social comparison Consequences of interpersonal understanding in conflict and prosocial contexts Contextual factors influencing cognitive strategies Her work bridges social/personality psychology with practical implications for interpersonal communication and social cognition. Publication Trends Recent publications (2010-2024) demonstrate sustained focus on: Empathic accuracy across diverse contexts Self-referential judgment processes Prosocial behavior implications Conflict resolution dynamics Cultural and gender-related judgment patterns Methodological advances in interpersonal perception The research reveals consistent investigation of cognitive strategies for understanding others, with recent work emphasizing prosocial outcomes and couple dynamics.

Gagan WigView profile

Associate Professor

• Brain Network Connectivity
• Cognitive Aging
• Alzheimer's Disease
• +3 more

Gagan Wig is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, with adjunct appointments in Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He directs the Wig Neuroimaging Lab, focusing on brain network connectivity across lifespan, healthy/pathological aging, and brain health disparities. His research employs structural/functional MRI, DTI, and TMS to study large-scale brain networks and their relationship to memory and attention. Professional preparation includes: Post-doctoral Associate in Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine (2012) Post-doctoral Associate in Psychology, Harvard University (2009) Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College (2006) B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience, University of British Columbia (2001) Research explores how brain networks change during aging and how socioeconomic status moderates these changes. His work reveals that education protects against brain network decline and that participant diversity is crucial for advancing brain aging research. Publications focus on neuroimaging of lifespan changes, Alzheimer's biomarkers, socioeconomic impacts on brain health, and methodological innovations in network analysis. Recent work demonstrates how functional network organization supports cognition despite Alzheimer's pathology and how data quantity affects network segregation measures. Awards include the Understanding Human Cognition Scholar Award from James S. McDonnell Foundation (2006). He has received significant funding including a $2.9M NIH grant studying socioeconomic links to Alzheimer's susceptibility and DARPA support for novel data sonification approaches.

Laura BeeritsView profile

Academic

• Student Writing Practices
• Teaching Assistant Pedagogy
• Contemporary American Coming-of-Age Novel
• +3 more

Laura Beerits is an Associate Teaching Professor in the English Department and Director of the Writing Center at Northeastern University’s College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH). She holds a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin, along with an MA in Rhetoric and Writing and a BA in English from Middlebury College. Her research focuses on student writing practices, teaching assistant pedagogy, and contemporary American coming-of-age novels. She received the College of Engineering (COE) Outstanding Teacher of First-Year Engineering Students Award in 2019. Beerits teaches courses including Advanced Writing in Business Professions, First-Year Writing, and Introductory First-Year Writing, emphasizing professional writing skills and workshop-based learning. She oversees the Writing Center, supporting student writing development across disciplines. Office hours are held Wednesday 4:30–5:30pm and Friday 12–2pm. Education: PhD in English, University of Texas at Austin MA in Rhetoric and Writing, University of Texas at Austin BA in English, Middlebury College Research Interests: Beerits explores how students construct self-referential language in academic writing, the training of teaching assistants, and literary themes in modern coming-of-age narratives. Her work bridges composition theory and literary analysis, with a focus on improving pedagogical practices in higher education. Awards: College of Engineering (COE) Outstanding Teacher of First-Year Engineering Students Award (April 2019) Advising & Grants: While no specific grants are listed, Beerits’ role in directing the Writing Center reflects her commitment to supporting student writing development institutionally. She collaborates with colleagues such as Professors Elizabeth Britt and Chris Gallagher in advancing writing education initiatives. Labs/Teams: As Director of the Writing Center, Beerits leads a team providing peer tutoring and resources for student writers across disciplines, emphasizing collaborative learning and critical feedback.

Hongmi LeeView profile

Assistant Professor

• Human Long-Term Memory
• Naturalistic Memory
• Functional Neuroimaging
• +2 more

Hongmi Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. Her research focuses on human long-term memory , naturalistic memory , and functional neuroimaging , using behavioral experiments and fMRI to explore how the brain encodes and retrieves complex real-world experiences. PhD, New York University (2018) Lee investigates how memories for naturalistic events are structured in the brain, emphasizing the roles of the posterior medial cortex and parietal cortex in memory reactivation. Her work examines semantic integration, contextual binding, and neural dynamics during spontaneous recall and future thinking. The 15 most recent articles highlight trends in episodic retrieval , event segmentation , and neural activity patterns during memory processing. Key methodologies include fMRI , naturalistic stimuli , and network science . Labs: Lee Memory and Cognition Lab