Member Spotlights
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November 2, 2022Local Student Wins Bronze at International Linguistics Olympiad
A local student has won a bronze medal at the highly competitive 2022 International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL), held on the Isle of Man in the United Kingdom, after competing in the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO), hosted by the UBC Department of Linguistics. Each year,…
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October 6, 2022Member Spotlight: Asma Afreen
Asma Afreen is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Language and Literacy Education. She is also a Global Storybooks team member and a NextGen Scholar in the Ensuring Full Literacy in a Multicultural and Digital World project (SSHRC Partnership Grant). What are your current research…
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October 5, 2022Pacific Northwest Languages and Literatures Press breaks barriers for documentation of Indigenous Languages
Pacific Northwest Languages and Literatures (PNWLL) Press is taking a radical approach to the standard academic publishing process by co-publishing with Indigenous communities, while maintaining high production and editorial standards for the language documentation of Indigenous languages. Dr…
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August 25, 2022Member Spotlight: Dr. Nancy Hermiston
Nancy Hermiston is chair of the UBC School of Music’s Voice and Opera Divisions and also serves as University Marshal. In 2014, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for her achievements as an opera singer, stage director and educator. Her operatic career has taken…
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August 3, 2022A Future With AI Writing Companions: Changing The Landscape for Writers
Modern language models now have the capability to generate written text that approaches human-level writing, foreshadowing the eventual advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing companions. However, while this new technology boasts increased productivity and support for writers, it also…
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August 2, 2022Is There a Correlation Between the Use of Representational Gestures and Self-Adaptors? Q&A with Dr. Elena Nicoladis
In the study, 'Is There a Correlation Between the Use of Representational Gestures and Self-Adaptors?' the research team tested the hypothesis that people who produce more representational gestures also produce more self-adaptors. A secondary purpose of the study was to test whether there were…
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July 27, 2022Member Spotlight: Ezra Yu
Language Sciences member, Ezra Yu, is a Masters' Student in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC.What are your current research interests?I have always been interested in public health issues caused by urbanization and how they can be studied using advanced health research…
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July 7, 2022Introducing Turjuman: A Public Tool For Neural Arabic Machine Translation
Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming lives. In particular, advances in deep learning, a subfield of AI that loosely mimics information processing in the brain, has enabled innovations across a wide range of domains. One area where rapid progress is taking place is machine…
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June 23, 2022Member Spotlight: Dr. Mark Turin
Language Sciences member, Dr. Mark Turin, is an anthropologist, linguist and radio presenter. At the University of British Columbia, Mark currently serves as an Associate Professor of Anthropology. He previously served as Chair of the First Nations and Endangered Languages…
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June 16, 2022Member Feature: Denitza Dramkin
Language Sciences member, Denitza Dramkin, is currently pursuing her PhD in Developmental Psychology working with Dr. Darko Odic in the Centre for Cognitive Development. Don't miss her upcoming Language Sciences Talk, 'Exploring the link between language and perception through number words and…