Dr. Tom Mccoy

Biography

Tom McCoy is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Yale University. He specializes in computational linguistics and investigates how language is learned and represented by humans and artificial neural networks. McCoy obtained his PhD in Cognitive Science from Johns Hopkins University in 2022. Following this, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University in the Department of Computer Science from 2022 to 2023. His research focuses on understanding the computational mechanisms that underpin human language. He particularly addresses the representation of complex syntactic structures in neural network systems, exploring their suitability for processing language in the context of advanced artificial intelligence. Additionally, McCoy uses computational modeling and human experiments to analyze language acquisition mechanisms, emphasizing the remarkable ability of young children to learn language. His research aims to bridge the gap between linguistics and artificial intelligence, seeking mutual benefits from the scientific study of language and advancements in AI. He is also the organizer of the North American Computational Linguistics Open competition (NACLO), which introduces high school students to the field of linguistics.

Research Interests