FACULTY

Biography

Dr. Penn obtained his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000, and worked as a research scientist at Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Germany (1996 to 1999) and at Bell Laboratories in the United States (1999 to 2001) before joining the U of T’s Department of Computer Science. He is involved in a number of research projects including ALE, the Attribute-Logic Engine, a freeware logic programming language for natural language grammars, and NECTAR, the Network for Effective Collaboration Technologies through Advanced Research, a project funded by NSERC. Professor Penn’s research primarily focuses on discrete algorithms to support natural language technology. His interests lie in Natural Language Processing, Mathematical Linguistics, Logic Programming, Description Logics, Linear Logic, Constructive Type Theory, Finite State Methods, Computational Morphology, and Pronunciation Modelling. Professor Penn currently teaches three courses, Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Discrete Mathematical Models of Sentence Structure, and Natural Language Computing. He is a member of the Mathematics of Language Society, serves on the editorial boards of a number of publications including Computational Linguistics and Linguistics and Philosophy, and is a frequent presenter at the annual meetings of the Association for Computational Linguistics.

Keywords
Computational linguistics, theory of programming languages, computational morphology, grammar development environments