Curriculum Vitae Xia Lu

408-669-9784 | xialu@buffalo.edu

567 S 6th St, San Jose, CA 95112

Summary

1. 
   PhD candidate with extensive and in-depth training, research and work experience in both Linguistics and Computer Science.
   
2. 
   Expertise in applying computational techniques (in machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, and computational linguistics) to theoretical and practical linguistic problems.
   
3. 
   Fifteen years’ experience in translation/interpretation in various fields.
   

2016 Ph.D., Linguistics, University at Buffalo

2016 M.S., Computational Linguistics, University at Buffalo

2005 M.A., Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Zhejiang University

2002 B.A., English Language and Literature, Zhejiang University

B.E., Computer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University

Excellent Undergraduate Honor | Graduate Entrance Examination waived

Research Experience

Computational Linguistics | Linguistic Typology

2009-Present, PhD Student, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo, New York, US

• 
  Developing an innovative methodology using probabilistic graphical models to study typological linguistic universals; also working on computational modelling of universal semantic spaces.
  
• 
  Developing a syllable-based model of Chinese word segmentation and computational models of Chinese constructions.
  
• 
  Applying machine learning techniques such as dimension reduction, clustering and unsupervised learning to the study of universality and variation across languages.
  

2013.08-2013.12, Visiting Researcher, Department of Computer Science, the University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

• 
  This visit was on an award from NSF arranged by the ACL 2013 student workshop committee.
  
• 
  Worked with Dr. Trevor Cohn on unsupervised learning of natural language structures and development of a universal POS tag-set.
  

2010-2013, PhD Student, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo, New York, US

• 
  Co-developed the infrastructure of Tesserae (Version 3) which provides detection of allusion in Latin poetry. The new version outperforms the previous two in speed, accuracy and scalability.
  
• 
  Worked for “Visualization Development for Digital Humanities Project” and developed a web visualization showing statistical analysis of Tesserae search results.
  

2005-2006, Assistant Researcher, Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy Co., Ltd., Beijing, China

• 
  Trained in and practiced HNC (Hierarchical Network Concepts) Theory, which is one of the three main approaches to Chinese Information Processing.
  
• 
  Developed annotation schemes and web applications for annotation of Chinese news corpus.
  
• 
  Developed semi-automated solutions which improved corpus annotation efficiency greatly.
  

2004-2005, Intern Researcher, Chinese Information Processing Lab, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

• 
  Conducted linguistic investigation of business dialogues for the project “Robust Approach to Information Extraction Based on Dialogue Content” supervised by Professor Chengqing Zong.
  
• 
  Developed a tagset of speech acts for annotating negotiation dialogues using theories in discourse analysis and pragmatics.
  
• 
  Developed an algorithm for summation of dialogues integrating automatic summarization techniques with linguistic theories.
  

2009-2013, Instructor, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo, New York, US

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  Developed NLP applications for teaching Chinese, such as automatic pattern drill generation, automatic essay evaluation, etc..
  

• 
  Built a website for language testing using Visual Basic .NET.
  

June 2015 - present, working on various projects

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  Developing an application using speech recognition techniques to help learners of English improve their pronunciation.
  
• 
  Developing a website and a chatbot helping learners to practice their Chinese using NLP techniques based on unique characteristics of Chinese.
  
• 
  Developing a translation platform using innovative techniques synthesizing outputs from different machine translation engines.
  
• 
  Sentiment analysis of words on the syllabic level in different languages.
  

2006-2008, English Editor, Chinese Education for Foreigners, Beijing Language and Culture University Press, Beijing, China

Translation/Interpretation

1999 - Present, Freelance translator/interpreter

• 
  Translate documents in various academic and business fields with excellent mastery of both English and Chinese, deep understanding of both cultures and efficient use of computational tools to facilitate translation.
  
• 
  Part-time interpreter for several business companies.
  

Spring 2015, Visiting Lecturer, Department of Linguistics and Language Development, San Jose State University, California, US

• 
  Courses taught:
  

• 
  Corpus Linguistics
  
• 
  Introduction to Speech Technology
  

2009-2013, Instructor, Chinese Program, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo, NY, US

• 
  Courses taught:
  

• 
  Chinese 101: Fall 2009 | Summer 2010 | Fall 2010 | Summer 2011 | Fall 2011 | Fall 2012
  
• 
  Chinese 102: Spring 2012 | Spring 2013
  

2002-2005, Instructor, School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

• 
  Courses taught: College English, Intensive Reading, English Listening and Speaking.
  

2013 Exploring Word Order Universals: A Probabilistic Graphical Model Approach. The Student Research Workshop at the 51^st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL-13). Sofia, Bulgaria. August 4.

2015 Probabilistic Graphical Modeling of Linguistic Universals. The 89th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, OR, January 8-11. (paper)

2014 Probabilistic Graphical Modeling of Linguistic Universals. The 6th North American Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (NASSLLI 2014) Student Session, College Park, MD, June 21-29. (poster)

Exploring Word Order Universals: A Probabilistic Graphical Model Approach. The 3^rd Pacific

2013 Exploring Word Order Universals: A Probabilistic Graphical Model Approach. National Centre for Language Technology, Dublin City University, Ireland, October 25. (invited talk)

Exploring Word Order Universals: A Probabilistic Graphical Model Approach. The 5th Conference on Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics (QITL-5), Leuven, Belgium, September 12-14. (poster)

Grants and Awards

2014 Conference Travel Award, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo. $100.

2013 Conference Travel Award, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo. $100.

Conference Travel Grant, The 51st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL-13). $2,000.

NSF award #1225629 “Extended Visit to Asian Research Labs for Selected Students Attending ACL 2012 Student Research Workshop” (continuation of previous year). $5,500.

2013 Tuition scholarship and TA-ship, Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo. 2009-2013

2005 Tuition scholarship and TA-ship (till 2003), School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. 2002-2005.

2002 Excellent Student Scholarship & All-Around Student Honor, Department of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang University. 1999-2002.

Academic Activities

2015 Member of Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). 2013-present.

Member of Linguistic Society of America (LSA). 2011-present.

2014 Machine Learning Summer School 2014, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, July 7-18.

The 52nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Baltimore, MD, June 22-27.

The 6th North American Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (NASSLLI 2014), College Park, MD, June 21-29.

2013 Inaugural conference of the Digital Classics Association “Word, Space, Time: Digital Perspectives on the Classical World”, Buffalo, NY, April 5-6.

2012 The 24th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-24), San Francisco, CA, June 8-10.

2011 The 85th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Pittsburgh, PA, January 6-9.

Skills and Expertise

Mandarin (native)

English (advanced written/spoken)

Japanese (intermediate written/spoken)

Website design: HTML, CSS, XML, PHP, Django

Programming: Python, C++, Matlab, Perl, Java

Data Analysis kills:

Database management: Access, SQL, MySQL

Statistics tools: Excel, R, Matlab, WinBUGS, Stan

Data Visualization: Shiny, Gephi, Tableau, D3, Plotly

NLP toolkits: NLTK, OpenNLP, Stanford CoreNLP, TextBlob

Machine learning toolkits: Scikit-learn, Orange, MonkeyLearn, BNT (Bayes Net Toolbox)