I am a computational linguist with specialisation in multilingual and cross-lingual applications. My personal aim has always been to apply scientific knowledge to produce applications for real-life environments. Rather than aiming for monolingual performance optimisation, our focus always is on higher language coverage (typically 10 to 20 languages).

As a linguist and scientist, I have worked in the framework of different grammar theories, but I believe that systems using statistical and heuristic information in addition to linguistic knowledge can achieve better results. I started my LT career working with rule-based approaches (machine translation). The JRC requirement of covering many languages while working in a small team led me to statistical and Machine Learning approaches.

From an application point of view, I worked on machine translation, computer-assisted language learning, dictionary conversion, multilingual document generation, information extraction, keyword assignment and classification. Furthermore, I have initiated and supervised work on multilingual sentiment analysis (opinion mining), information extraction (including named entity recognition, event and relation extraction, geo-tagging, quotation extraction), document clustering and classification, document navigation, visualisation of extracted data, language recognition, summarisation, and various social networks, based on different types of input extracted from text.

Professional Experience

Language Technology Project Manager at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra (I).

Main focus: News analysis, multilingual document retrieval, information extraction and information visualisation, using mainly multilingual thesauri and nomenclatures, as well as statistical and Machine Learning techniques.

Our tool set includes multilingual tools for language recognition; automatic keyword identification; cross-lingual assignment of thesaurus indexing terms; the identification and disambiguation of geographical references in text (geo-tagging); creation of animated geographical maps on the basis of place names mentioned in text; document similarity calculation; clustering; classification; summarisation; terminology extraction; named entity recognition; event recognition, visualisation of the contents of large document collections and document navigation, sentiment analysis, software for document retrieval using a web crawling software agent. (See the JRC's Language Technology page)

Senior Research Scientist at Sharp Laboratories of Europe (SLE) in Oxford, UK: responsible for Language Technology products (multilingual document generator and multilingual phrase book); data mining from electronic dictionaries, machine translation, summarisation.

Research Fellow at Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT) in Iizuka, Japan.

Research Associate at the Language Technology Department of the University of Manchester - Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in the UK: machine translation and computer-assisted language learning (CALL).

Deputy head and technical manager of the UMIST teams of EC-funded MLAP machine translation projects TRADE and CAT2-EDS.

Visiting Scientist at Institute for Applied Information Science (IAI) in Saarbrücken (D): machine translation.

Production management, marketing, public relations, sales promotion in the industrial rubber foam company PANA Schaumstoff GmbH in Geretsried (D)
(part time / full time).

Teacher assistant at Lycée Louis-Le-Grand in Paris (F).

All-round executive training in the textiles firm PANA Werk KG in Wolfratshausen (D).

University Education

Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics at University of Manchester - Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in Manchester (UK): A Study of Word Order Variation in German with special Reference to Modifier Placement. (read PDF version)

Magister Artium (M.A.) ‘with distinction’ in Theoretical Linguistics with French linguistics and Spanish linguistics at Ludwig Maximilians Universität (LMU) München (D), in parallel to working. Studies in Berlin and Munich.

Abitur with specialisation in French and Mathematics at Gymnasium Pullach (D).

Language Skills

German

Native language

English

7 years at high-school level, lived in the UK for 6 years.

French

7 years at high-school level, lived in France for ~ 24 months; university studies of French linguistics, language, literature and mediaeval studies.

Italian

Courses at university and at the JRC; living in Italy since 1998.

Spanish

4 months of intensive, full-time language courses in Spain. University studies of Spanish linguistics, language, literature and mediaeval studies.

Japanese

Basic notions of the grammar and of the writing systems.

Hobbies and Interests

I am interested in projects to support developing countries. Besides engaging in private funding activities, I am an active member of the charitable EC – JRC organisation Association Europe – Third World (Europa - Terzo Mondo, ETM).

My favourite sports are table tennis (see me play with various partners: 1, 2, 3), volleyball and tennis. I also like to play softball and Frisbee.

I love to travel, especially long-distance, or to experience a country through longer work-related stays.

I am interested in photography, and there especially in capturing people. A few photos from trips to Senegal (two trips), Cameroon, India, Mali, Ethiopia, Zambia and more are online.

I like playing chess. I am interested in cinema, going to the theatre and visiting art galleries, although our children recently did not leave a lot of time for these activities.

I actively enjoy meeting new people at social gatherings.