 |
Alumnus Jurafsky
wins coveted MacArthur Fellowship
|
Daniel
Jurafsky was recognized by the MacArthur Foundation for his
"extraordinary originality and dedication" in computational
linguistics.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CU-BOULDER PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE |
Berkeley engineering alumnus Daniel Jurafsky (’83 Linguistics;
Ph.D. ’92 EECS) is a genius when it comes to teaching computers
how to better understand people. The winner of a prestigious MacArthur
Fellowship, commonly called a "genius grant," Jurafsky
teaches linguistics and computer science at the University of
Colorado at Boulder.
Jurafsky, 39, was one of 24 recipients of the 2002 grants, a $500,000
award to "pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional
inclinations."
Developing a better understanding of how people use language is
essential to the development of more advanced natural language
processing so we may someday talk to computers in our native tongue.
To that end, Jurafsky is working on new speech recognition technology
that is more forgiving of foreign accents. He’s also developing
Web-based natural language software so users can query Internet
resources in plain English.
The MacArthur Selection Committee — a group of about a dozen
leaders in the arts, sciences, humanities, and nonprofits —
praised Jurafsky's research in computational linguistics for providing
"clues to the underlying semantic structure of communication."
Jurafsky's research may help humans talk to one another more effectively
as well. For example, Jurafsky and his collaborators have shown
that we pronounce more precisely words that are key for the listener
to be able to accurately understand potential ambiguities.
In 2000 he literally wrote the book on computational linguistics,
Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language
Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition,
co-authored with CU-Boulder computer science professor James Martin.
"Not only is Dan a brilliant and creative thinker, but he
is a kind, generous and giving human being," says CU-Boulder
Linguistics Chair Barbara Fox. "We are immensely proud of
him and extremely fortunate to have him in our community."
After a post-doctoral position at the International Computer Science
Institute in Berkeley and an affiliation with the University’s
Department of Linguistics, Jurafsky joined the University of Colorado
in 1966.
By David Pescovitz, editor of the College’s
online publication Lab Notes.
|
|
FOREFRONT takes you into the labs, classrooms,
and lives of professors, students, and alumni for an intimate
look at the innovative research, teaching, and campus life that
defines the College of Engineering at the University of California,
Berkeley.
Published three times a year by the Engineering Public Affairs
Office. Have a comment about Forefront? E-mail
your letter to the editor. Click here
to learn more about the magazine.
|
|
