Thomas Graf

Thomas Graf is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and an Affiliate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS) at Stony Brook University. He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA (2013) and an M.A. from the University of Vienna. His research focuses on the intersection of theoretical linguistics and computer science, exploring structural complexity in syntax, morphology, and phonology, and its implications for language processing and acquisition. Graf’s work emphasizes computational constraints on natural language, such as subregular complexity and parsing efficiency, and involves empirical studies across languages like English, Icelandic, and American Sign Language.

• Education:
  • Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles (2013)
  • M.A., University of Vienna

Research interests include computational syntax and phonology, parsing theory, and the formal characterization of linguistic universals. Key themes involve the computational power of linguistic frameworks (e.g., Minimalist grammars), the subregular hierarchy, and the typological implications of computational constraints. Graf’s recent work investigates how empirical phenomena like syntactic islands arise from complexity limits in natural language.

His contributions to computational linguistics include Python tools for Minimalist grammar processing and collaborations in labs like the Computational Linguistics Lab (CompLab) at Stony Brook. He has also received a NSF CAREER grant for research on abstract universals in morphosyntax.

Labs/Teams: Active member of the Computational Linguistics Lab (CompLab) at Stony Brook University. Leads the MathLing Reading Group and contributes to NLP research initiatives.