Who are you and what do you do? With whom are you collaborating (Partner)?
I work in the area of computational linguistics. My research lies in understanding how algorithms, and more specifically language models filter information such as understanding the types of biases embedded in large language models (LLMs) and how they manifest in downstream tasks. I am also keen on developing methods for modeling societal discourse. This involves tasks such as developing methods to mine ideologies, and more generally, opinions from texts. Lastly, I enjoy thinking about the implementation of my research in real world use case applications, such as news recommenders. As a matter of fact, diversifying perspectives in news recommendations is what my project in Software Campus is about and I partnered up with Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
What exactly was your personal to pursue a career in computer science?
I have a very interdisciplinary background and I shifted to the area of computer science and computational linguistics only in my master’s and PhD studies. What drew my attention to this was the possibility of working with hands-on problems that can have an impact on society. Moreover, computer science is appealing to me because it can be easily united with different areas such as linguistics, social sciences, psychology, or medicine.
Which app/technical invention is more than essential to you?
Don’t know how I would live without Google Maps.
Which was your most challenging experience along your career in computer science that You had to face so far?
Coming from humanities as my first degree, my biggest challenge was to start learning everything about machine learning from scratch. It was challenging and a very steep learning curve at first, but I’m happy with the fruits I’ve harvested with this type of knowledge since I stepped in the field.
If there was one sentence with which you could reach out to every person, what would you tell the world?
Everyone can make the difference; even if you think that the effect is small to even try, just do it and perhaps you’ll be surprised with the effect of your positive actions. 🙂
Source language of this interview: English
