People

My name is Huteng Dai (xu˨˩tʰəŋ˧˥ tai˥˨ 戴虎腾; meaning). I am an assistant professor of computational linguistics and phonology at the University of Michigan.

My research focuses on understanding how humans learn sound patterns from noisy, real-world data. I build interpretable models of phonological learning that are not only mathematically well-defined but also succeed on real-world corpora.

Find out more about my recent work at: hutengdai.com. You can also contact me at huteng@umich.edu.

My name is Shane Storks. I am a postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of Michigan. My research evaluates and strengthens the language learning, reasoning, and visual grounding capabilities in NLP technologies, often drawing from cognitive psychology and linguistics. I’m also interested in the broader impacts of NLP applications and research practice. Find out more about my recent work and contact me at shanestorks.com.

My name is Jenny Blass, and I’m an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.

I’m currently completing a double majoring in Linguistics and Computer Science, and I’m interested in the intersection of these fields, particularly computational linguistics, natural language processing, and AI and data science more broadly. I’m excited to explore ways computational techniques can deepen our understanding of human language processing, and to continue growing as a researcher.

You can contact me at jblass@umich.edu

My name is Miles Gilberti, and I am an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. I am studying Cognitive Science and Computer Science, with particular interest in computational psycholinguistics. I enjoy thinking about how neural systems can accomplish syntactic and semantic computation tasks. I’m currently working on projects in emergent communication and LLM interpretability. As I begin my research career, I hope to help develop more specific and detailed computational accounts of the ways neural networks achieve complex linguistic behavior.

My name is Pratik Patil, an Aerospace Systems Engineer from the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan, specializing in cross-domain modeling and computational mathematics. I’m experienced in developing high-performance simulations for complex aerospace, multiphysics simulation, and NLP challenges. I’m particularly interested in building sentiment analysis models tailored to the unique context of space missions, potentially integrating data from wearable sensors for a multi-modal approach. You can contact me at ppratik@umich.edu.

My name is Ashna (ɑʃnə) Mulchandani. I was an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, graduating in May of 2025. I studied Linguistics, Computer Science, and French, and pursued topics in natural language processing and computational linguistics. I was particularly interested in the intersection of language and technology, as well as its potential for new artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. You can contact me at mashna@umich.edu.