Information for recommenders

Rob Speer

Thanks for taking the time to recommend me! I've put together this page to hopefully help you find the information you need. If I handed this to you as a printout, you can also access it on the Web at:

http://torg.media.mit.edu/rob/index.php/Recommenders

Contents 1 Applications and deadlines 2 About me 2.1 My research 3 Papers 4 Instructions for submitting recommendations 4.1 NSF 4.2 Brown 4.3 Harvard 4.4 MIT 4.5 Brandeis

Applications and deadlines

Here are the deadlines for the letters of recommendation on my applications:

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship: December 1
• Brown: December 1
• Harvard: December 15
• MIT: December 31
• Brandeis: January 15

About me

I graduated from MIT in 2006 with two degrees, one in computer science and one in music, and I continued on to do an M.Eng. in computer science. I'm working on a thesis involving the OpenMind Common Sense project in the Media Lab, and I'm the head TA for 6.034 (Artificial Intelligence). I'm applying to Ph.D. programs that I plan to begin next fall.

Here are the essays I wrote for the NSF application.

• Personal statement
• Previous research
• Proposed plan of research -- if I continued working on common sense reasoning toward a Ph.D., I'd do something like this.

My research

My perspective on the field of natural language processing is that we don't currently have anything close to the computing power that a computer would need to understand language the way a human does. What we can do is use the AI techniques we know to narrow the gulf of understanding between a human and a computer. An important step is to give the computer access to common-sense knowledge, so that it can talk about the same world that humans talk about. Common sense won't solve everything, but it puts some grounding in reality behind the words the computer uses.

In the Media Lab, I'm working to improve the way that OpenMind acquires and builds up its knowledge. My new site in development, Open Mind Commons, can learn by analogy, give feedback to users about what kinds of things it is learning, and ask users relevant questions that make its knowledge more strongly connected. My thesis proposal describes the goals of this system. I'm currently working on merging this site with the GlobalMind project to build a multilingual knowledge base.

I also believe that we can apply NLP techniques to understanding music, and by doing so we could create more intelligent music transcription software. My senior project in music was to survey the field of computational music theory, and the result is a paper called Computable Theories of Music Analysis.

Papers

My two published papers:

• F0 peaks aligned with nonprominent syllables in American English. In a UROP I worked on from 2003-2004 in the RLE Speech Lab on prosodic labeling, I identified a speech phenomenon that was not covered by the labeling system; this paper, on how we perceive the phenomenon, was the result.
• Meeting the Computer Halfway: Language Processing in the Artificial Language Lojban. Catherine Havasi and I presented this as a poster at the Student Oxygen Workshop 2004 conference.

This one was just submitted to the Common Sense workshop at IUI:

• Open Mind Commons: An Inquisitive Approach to Learning Common Sense

Instructions for submitting recommendations

NSF

NSF requires its recommendations to be submitted online through their FastLane system. You should have received an e-mail that lets you log in to submit the recommendation.

The recommendation is due by December 1.

Brown

Brown prefers its recommendations to be submitted online, through Embark. You have should have received an e-mail that lets you log in to submit the recommendation.

The recommendation is due by December 1.

Harvard

Harvard uses Embark as well, and it works exactly like Brown. You have should have received an e-mail that lets you log in to submit the recommendation.

The recommendation is due by December 15.

MIT

MIT prefers its recommendations to be submitted online through CSAIL's own system. The system withholds the directions for submitting recommendations until I complete my application.

You can also choose to submit on paper. Use this form and mail it to:

EECS Graduate Office

Room 38-444

MIT

77 Mass. Ave.

Cambridge MA 02139.

The recommendation is due by December 31.

Brandeis

Brandeis appears to expect recommendations to be mailed to them.

I'm bringing you a recommendation form for Brandeis, or you can print this form. Put the recommendation form in the provided envelope and sign it across the flap.

The address is:

Brandeis University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

MS 031

P.O. Box 9110

Waltham, MA 02454-9110

The recommendation must be received by January 15.