In the Fall, we will be welcoming a new faculty member to the Department of Language Studies at UTSC! Shohini Bhattasali will be joining us as a computational linguist! We had the great pleasure of sitting down with her for an interview.
What attracted you to the UofT linguistics department?
UofT has an incredible intellectual community and this is reflected through the research and the curriculum. I would love to help strengthen the computational linguistics program and I’m very excited to collaborate within Linguistics and with other departments (e.g. cognitive science, and information science). I also like how each campus has its unique identity but still makes up one cohesive whole.
Do you have any expectations regarding the department?
Everyone seems really welcoming and friendly. I am excited to see what everyone is working on and learn more about collaborative, interdisciplinary opportunities. The students at U of T seem very motivated and I’m excited to work with them and guide them along the way. I’m especially looking forward to working with students who want to incorporate computational modelling into their projects or are interested in the cognitive science of language and need guidance.