TheBestSchools.org has ranked The University of Texas at Austin's linguistics and computer science departments the 14th best computational linguistics graduate programs in the U.S.
This ranking extends the long history of success enjoyed by UT Computer Science's larger Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Natural language processing (NLP) has long been a pillar of the lab, including in particular the research work of Lab Director Ray Mooney, who focuses on natural language processing and computational linguistics.
Natural language processing will be a critical component in the department's new push to expand in the area of machine perception. Machine perception is the capability of a computer system to interpret data from images, sounds, music and video in a manner that is similar to the way humans use their senses to relate to the world around them. Machine perception allows the computer to use this sensory input, as well as conventional computational means of collecting data to gather information with greater accuracy and to present it in a way that is more comfortable for the user.[1] These include natural language processing, computer vision, and the underlying driving technology of machine learning.
UT Computer Science has received a commitment from the university to add multiple new faculty from the machine perception field. The department currently has three new faculty slated to join the machine perception program over the next year. Philipp Krähenbühl, whose research interests lie in computer vision, machine learning, and computer graphics, will join the department this fall. Starting this fall as well is Qixing Huang, whose research interests are in computer graphics, vision and machine learning. Greg Durrett will be joining the department in fall 2017. His research focuses on statistical natural language processing. These talented individuals join a strong team of fourteen current Artificial Intelligence Laboratory faculty, ensuring that UT Computer Science will continue to be a leader in the field for years to come.