UMass NLP Seminar: Spring 2025

This webpage has information about two NLP seminar activities for Spring 2025: (1) a list of NLP research talks by visitors, which are open to anyone at UMass or the Five Colleges; and (2) a graduate seminar, COMPSCI 692L, which focuses on related paper reading and discussions.

NLP Research Talks

All talks are in room CS 151 unless otherwise noted, and open to anyone at UMass or the Five Colleges.

• Wed Feb 5, 12pm-1pm: Alexander Spangher, Planning in Creative Contexts
• Mon Feb 10, 4pm-5pm: Nicholas Tomlin
• Wed Feb 12, 12pm-1pm: Sarah Wiegreffe
• Wed Feb 19, 12pm-1pm: Weixin Liang
• Thu Feb 20, 12pm-1pm: Yizhong Wang
• Tue Feb 25, 12pm-1pm: Akari Asai
• Thu Feb 27, 12pm-1pm: Wenting Zhao
• Tue Mar 4, 12pm-1pm: TBA

(For UMass faculty: information on visit scheduling.)

COMPSCI 692L: Discussion course for the NLP Seminar

Schedule

The course meets Wednesdays, 11:30am-12:45pm, room CS 142. On days with a talk, we end early at 11:50am to head over to the talk. Due to the required attendance at research talks on other days, we will end earlier in the semester.

• Class session, Feb 5 (short session): Brief introduction and small amount of paper discussion. Nothing must be submitted before class, but there is an assignment. Read the following research paper before class, and bring a printout or electronic copy. Formulate at least two questions and be prepared to discuss in class: (1) a clarification question, about something you’d like to understand better about the paper; and (2) a question or comment about something you found interesting, would like to know more about, or an idea for future work.
  • Do LLMs Plan Like Human Writers? Comparing Journalist Coverage of Press Releases with LLMs. Spangher et al., EMNLP 2024.
    
    

• Due Sunday, Feb 9: submit questions for next paper to the Google Form (TBD)

• Class session, Feb 12: TBD

• Class session, Feb 19: TBD

• Class session, Feb 26: TBD

• Class session, Mar 5: TBD

• Class session, Mar 12: TBD

• No class Mar 19. Enjoy spring break!

• One or two meetings after spring break, to be scheduled.

• Tentative, additional talk: Fri Apr 11, 12pm-1:30: Laura Biester, in LGRC A104 (in the CSSI seminar series)

Course description

This 1-credit discussion course meets Wednesdays, 11:30am-12:45pm, room CS 142 during the semester. Instructor: Brendan O’Connor (email)

For spring 2025, the NLP seminar will focus on reading and discussing the research papers of the NLP research visitors. Visitor talks will often not be at the class discussion time, but enrolled students will be required to attend or do make-up activities. When the schedule allows, our goal is to read papers before the researcher’s visit, and be prepared to engage with questions and discussion.

Each week’s session will focus on one or a few papers, such as the work authored by an upcoming visitor. All participants will choose and read one or more papers for each week’s session, and write reactions, comments, and bring questions to class. Activities may include leading discussions and short presentations.

Depending on the schedule, the later part of the semester may feature talks and discussions of other NLP research topics.

The course is recommended for graduate students with experience in NLP, such as one from the UMass NLP courses page. COMPSCI 485 and 685 may be the most relevant.

Course details

If you’d like to participate but cannot sign up in SPIRE, please submit your information on this form.

Speakers from some previous offerings of the NLP Seminar: Fall 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023.