Hi! I'm Vagrant, a computer scientist, linguist and birder. I am a computer science PhD candidate at Saarland University in Germany, where I write code in programming languages to make computers do things with human languages - I currently work on low-resource language modelling and question answering for German and English. I am figuring out my research interests as I work on my PhD, but broadly they include:
- robust NLP
- low-resource settings
- gender, language and tech
My philosophy on science is that it should do good in the world, for a definition of good that is power-aware at worst and counter-power at best. (This is difficult under capitalism). Such science can only be done in collaboration with people outside the ivory tower. Science communication is also an integral part of the science I want to do, and I enjoy giving talks, especially introductory ones.
You may have known me under a different name previously but I go by Vagrant now. My pronouns are xe/xem and they/them. My title is Mx (pronounced like "mix"). Press the play button to hear my name. If you know the IPA, it is /'veɪ.gɹɘnt.'gaʊ.tʌm/.