UpDate - Vol. 13, No. 12, Page 3
November 18, 1993
NSF grant supports research graduate traineeships in computing

     The National Science Foundation has awarded the University of
Delaware's Department of Computer and Information Sciences a grant of
$262,900, with expected additional funding of $334,600, for five graduate
research traineeships in the area of natural language human-computer
interfaces.
     This project, under the direction of associate professors Sandra
Carberry, Kathleen McCoy and K. Vijayashanker, will cover tuition for five
Ph.D. students and provide each with a stipend of at least $14,000 per year
for five years. These graduate traineeships will be awarded to outstanding
students who enter the Ph.D. program in the fall of 1994.
     The development of natural language human-computer interfaces is a
major research component of the Department of Computer and Information
Sciences.
     Carberry's research focuses on the design of intelligent dialogue
systems that can collaborate with their users in performing a task. An
important aspect of this work is the dynamic construction of user models
and the identification of strategies for adapting the system's behavior to
the individual user with whom the system is interacting.
     Vijayashanker's research is concerned with theoretical foundations and
grammatical formalism, with emphasis on Tree-Adjoining Grammars (TAG) and
their use in parsing and generation. Both Carberry's collaborative dialogue
project and Vijayashanker's TAG project are supported by individual
research grants from the National Science Foundation.
     McCoy is studying techniques for enhancing the ability of systems to
generate natural language responses. In addition, she is concerned with the
development of augmentative communication aids for individuals with
disabilities and has been the director of an NSF-supported project that is
investigating a system for tutoring students whose native language is
American Sign Language in the correct use of written English. McCoy is also
affiliated with the Rehabilitation Engineering Center of the A.I. duPont
Institute.
     Research in human-computer interfaces at the University of Delaware
benefits from interdisciplinary collaboration among members of several
departments. William Frawley, acting chairperson, and Robert Frank,
assistant professor, both of the University's Department of Linguistics,
and James Hoffman, professor, and Suzanne Mannes, associate professor, both
of the Department of Psychology, contributed to the program of study
outlined in the graduate traineeship proposal, and further collaboration is
anticipated over the course of the grant.
     In addition, possible summer industrial internships have been
identified for the graduate trainees, along with opportunities for
short-term assignments in international research laboratories such as the
German Center for Research in Artificial Intelligence.