معرفی
Lieve Macken is Associate Professor at Ghent University's Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication within the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy. With 28 years of experience in language technology, she leads research in machine translation, natural language processing, and translation technology applications. Her work bridges academic research and practical implementation through the Language and Translation Technology Team (LT3).
Dr. Macken's research focuses on machine translation evaluation, human-machine interaction in translation workflows, literary translation with MT, and educational applications of translation technology. Her work spans multiple dimensions including quality assessment metrics, eye-tracking studies of translation processes, syntactic difficulty prediction, and specialized applications for asylum seekers and language learners. She has pioneered research on translationese in machine translation output and developed methodologies for assessing translation quality through both process and product metrics.
Her recent publications reveal a strong trend toward examining the intersection of large language models with traditional machine translation systems, particularly in literary contexts. She investigates how different translation workflows impact textual characteristics, reading effort, and translator productivity. A significant portion of her recent work addresses social applications of translation technology, particularly through the MaTIAS project serving asylum seekers, and educational applications through projects like WiLMa and IVESS.
- Guest editor of Special Issue 'Advances in Computer-Aided Translation Technology' in Informatics journal (2019)
- Extensive experience as reviewer/referee for journals, conferences, and research projects
- External examiner for seven PhD candidates
Dr. Macken has supervised numerous PhD projects including Joke Daems' work on translation robots, Arda Tezcan's research on MT quality estimation, and Bram Vanroy's study of syntactic difficulties in translation. She currently supervises the Horizon Europe Marie Sklodovska Curie Fellowship of Paola Ruffo and multiple PhD projects including Margot Fonteyne's WiLMa project and Jasper Degraeuwe's IVESS project. Her research is funded through diverse channels including Horizon Europe, BOF UGent, FWO, and AMIF grants. She coordinates the postgraduate program Computer-Assisted Language Mediation and co-coordinates the European Master's in Technology for Translation and Interpreting (EM-TTI), teaching courses in Computer-Assisted Translation, Machine Translation, and Dissertation.
As coordinator of the Language and Translation Technology Team (LT3), Dr. Macken leads a vibrant research group that regularly presents at major conferences including MT Summit, EAMT, and ICTIC. The team's work spans theoretical research in translation technology and practical implementations addressing real-world challenges in scholarly communication, language education, and social integration.
