Dr. Jason Eisner

Biography

Jason Eisner is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University and is affiliated with the Center for Language and Speech Processing. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of Cognitive Science at the Krieger School and serves as the director of research at Microsoft Semantic Machines. His research is focused on developing probabilistic modeling, inference, and learning techniques to model various kinds of linguistic structures, connecting existing models with large language models, common-sense reasoning, and formal reasoning for applications such as chatbot assistants and AI-curated educational tools. Eisner has authored or presented over 175 papers on topics such as algorithms for parsing and machine translation, computational phonology, and conversational AI. He is also the lead designer of Dyna, a declarative programming language tailored for AI algorithms. Eisner is a fellow of the Association for Computational Linguistics and has received multiple awards including teaching and paper awards from the Whiting School of Engineering and presentations at major conferences. He completed his AB in Psychology at Harvard University, followed by BA/MA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a member of the faculty at Johns Hopkins University since 2000, after serving as an assistant professor at the University of Rochester.

Research Interests