FAQs from Prospective Students
Founded 1963, with 15 research faculty, we are one of the few linguistics departments where phonetics, phonology, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and computational linguistics are all core strengths.
Strong connections with Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science (with a graduate certificate program), U‑M AI Lab, and MICDE (nation's first PhD in Scientific Computing—available as a dual degree).
Phonetics & Phonology Lab (EMA, sound booth, ultrasound)
Computational Neurolinguistics Lab (EEG, fMRI)
Computational Linguistics Lab (Greak Lake HPC cluster, 8-way RTX 6000 GPU)
Few departments offer this range under one roof.
You can take up to 18 credits/term (about 6 courses), no extra tuition—including courses outside your PhD requirements: CS, engineering, statistics, music, whatever you want. And it just so happens that U-M is leading in almost every field—your learning experience is only bounded by your own motivation.
There are plenty to do in Ann Arbor, and the summer is the best season to visit. I will just say this is one of the few college towns that is more crowded during holidays.
The cold builds character and discipline. Once you get used to it, you look forward to the peaceful winter days :)
Theory-builders with strong background in machine learning and/or formal language theory; intellectual maturity to ask research questions from first principles; drive to tackle problems head-on, e.g., self-teaching math or code when the work demands it, building tools when none exist.
My goal as an advisor is to help my students become future leaders and succeed in academia and beyond.
My advisees choose their own research questions. I hold the work to a reasonably high standard. We set concrete milestones together, and I give direct feedback when the work falls short.
My door is always open. I also encourage and support students to seek out other mentors in the department and beyond.
Please do not email me about PhD admissions—they will most likely be ignored, and most importantly, the admission decision is not made by individual faculty. Instead, find and talk to me at a colloquium or conference, e.g. AMP, SCiL, ACL, EMNLP, LSA.