Albert Webson

I spent most of my undergrad preparing for a PhD in political science, with particular interests in the United States Senate, the European Union, and the design of government procedures and institutions. However, I accidentally completed a research project in natural language processing; compounded with many other reasons, I’m now a computer science PhD advised by Prof. Ellie Pavlick.

My research seeks to answer the ambitious but inescapable question of “What does it take for a computer to genuinely understand language?” I’m currently working on an interdisciplinary theory of semantic meaning (linguistics), concept (cognitive science), and mental representation (philosophy); plus, of course, how does this inform what type of grounding, structure, and evaluation we should have for NLP models.

For current Brown students: If you’d like to gain some research experience by working on a NLP project, please get in touch! CS147 and CLPS185 recommended but not required. As with most things worth pursuing in life, the most important thing is consistent time commitment.