Suhr

Alane Suhr, a first-year doctoral student in the field of computer science, has received one of 10 Microsoft Research Women’s Fellowships awarded this year.

The fellowship provides $20,000 for tuition and conference travel, connects the recipients with a Microsoft mentor and researchers in her area of study, and facilitates recipients to interact with each other in a collaborative peer community.

Microsoft points out that women are woefully underrepresented in computing-related fields. Despite earning more than half of all baccalaureate degrees throughout North America, women make up fewer than 20 percent of graduates in computer and information sciences, according to the latest figures from the Taulbee Survey. (At Cornell women have made up 26.7 percent of computer science graduates over the last year or two, the department reports.)

Suhr’s research interests are in natural language processing, particularly in gaining deeper understanding of text by considering its context. For example, she explains, “If I ask someone ‘Do you have a sister?’ and then ask ‘What is her name?’ the second question is dependent on the context of the first.” She also is teaching computers to describe images and perform such functions on them as counting or positioning objects.

Suhr is advised by Yoav Artzi, assistant professor of computer science, based at Cornell Tech.