The NLP Group at Penn State

  Yuchen Wei joined the NLP group in the fall of 2024, the second year of his masters program, to work on use of LLMs for assessment of student's conceptual understanding of statistics based on their responses to short answer questions. He graduated, then commenced on May 11, 2025, as shown here with his advisor Becky Passonneau.

On May 10th, marking the end of the 2025 Spring semester, the annual NLP gathering was hosted at the home of Prof. Rebecca J. Passonneau. The event brought together members from three NLP research groups in the Penn State Computer Science and Engineering department, led by Prof. Rebecca J. Passonneau, Prof. Rui Zhang, and Prof. Wenpeng Yin. Everyone was happy that we had a day of warm sunshine, since it had been raining all week. It was the first time the NLP party used the firepit, which lent a special spark. 😉

  From October 7-9, 2024, Prof. Rebecca Passonneau and her former PhD student, Prof. Yanjun Gao, attended COLM 2024 in Philadelphia. Prof. Gao is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where she is making significant contributions in AI and biomedical informatics. It was wonderful to celebrate her achievements and reconnect!

  Congratulations to Mahsa on her well-deserved Master’s graduation! 🎉 We had a wonderful time celebrating this milestone at Professor Rebecca Passonneau’s home, surrounded by friends and great conversations. Wishing Mahsa all the best in her future endeavors—this is just the beginning of many more successes to come! 🌟 

On September 20th, the annual NLP party was hosted at the home of Prof Rebecca J. Passonneau, bringing together members from three NLP research groups in the Penn State Computer Science and Engineering department. The three groups, led by Prof Rebecca J. Passonneau, Prof Rui Zhang and Prof Wenpeng Yin. The event was a delightful blend of intellectual conversations and casual socializing. In attendance were the three professors, their students, and a few invited friends. The gathering provided an opportunity for researchers across the groups to discuss their ongoing projects, exchange ideas, and strengthen the collaborative spirit that defines Penn State’s NLP community. Photo Caption: From left to right Third Row: Renze Lou, Nan Zhang, Hongchao Fang, Tingyang Sun Second Row: Ryo Kamoi, Sarkar Snigdha Sarathi Das, Wenpeng Yin, Vipul Gupta, Berk Atil, Yuchen Wei First Row: Rui Zhang, Ibraheem Moosa, Zhuoyang Zou, Rebecca J. Passonneau, Janice Ahn, Ranran Haoran Zhang, Ruihao Pan

  Congratulations, Vipul, on passing his comprehensive exam, and  delivering an impressive  presentation  on "Responsible AI: Towards Equitable Model Evaluation" ! Here’s to his continued success and the amazing accomplishments that surely lie ahead in his PhD journey!

  ChatGPT Congratulations to Zhaohui Li on the remarkable achievement of graduating with a doctorate and successfully defending the dissertation! To celebrate this momentous occasion, family and colleagues gathered to honor Zhaohui's accomplishments and to toast to the bright future that lies ahead. We are all incredibly proud of Zhaohui and look forward to seeing the continued success and contributions to the field. Well done, Dr. Li!