Dr. Dong Nguyen

Dong Nguyen is an assistant professor in Natural Language Processing (NLP), at the Department of Information and Computing Sciences. Previously, she was a research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute (UK). She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Twente and she gained her master’s degree from the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. She received a KNAW Early Career Award in 2019 and is supported by a Veni grant. At UU, she teaches in the AI master's program. Her research centers on the intersection of NLP and computational social science.

How can we develop NLP systems that model the social aspects of language?

First, I hope to contribute to “demystifying” AI. Currently, the public discourse around AI is dominated by extreme views: often AI is overhyped, or AI is portrayed as a threat to society. I like to bring in a more nuanced view. I teach NLP and Machine Learning to a broad range of audiences, including UU students and government professionals, and I enjoy thinking about ways to explain technical concepts in a simple manner.

Second, since my time as a PhD student I have worked on bridging computer science and the social sciences, for example by organizing several events on this topic. At UYA, I hope to continue my efforts towards stimulating interdisciplinary research.

Dong Nguyen has been a member of the Utrecht Young Academy, a bridge between young and talented researchers, since 2023.