Allie Lahnala
About Me
I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science at University of Michigan Language and Information Technologies Lab. I am advised by Professor Rada Mihalcea.
Research
My interests research interests are broadly within computational social science and linguistics. I am particularly interested in goal‑oriented conversational settings (e.g., tutoring, psychotherapy, debate). My hope is to develop methods for identifying and fostering empathetic communication where it supports the desired outcomes of dialogues in goal-oriented settings.
Publications
Chord Embeddings: Analyzing What They Capture and Their Role for Next Chord Prediction and Artist Attribute Prediction Allison Lahnala, Gauri Kambhatla, Jiajun Peng, Matthew Whitehead, Gillian Minnehan, Eric Guldan, Jonathan K. Kummerfeld, Anıl Çamcı and Rada Mihalcea. In Proceedings of Computational Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design – 10th International Conference, EvoMUSART (2021)
Expressive Interviewing: A Conversational System for Coping with COVID-19 Charlie Welch, Allison Lahnala, Verónica Pérez-Rosas, Siqi Shen, Sarah Seraj, Larry An, Kenneth Resnicow, James Pennebaker, & Rada Mihalcea. In NLP COVID-19 Workshop Part 2 at EMNLP 2020.
Other Activities
Explore Computer Science Research I am an organizer for Michigan's chapter of Explore Computer Science Research (sponsored by Google). Our program offers a paid research opportunity for undergraduate students in which they are paired with volunteer experienced researchers to mentor them. The volunteer mentors include Professors, Research Scientists, Post-docs, and PhD Candidates at University of Michigan. I host weekly office hours to offer the students additional research advice and support. With my collaborators, I organize research workshops, conversations with graduate students and career researchers, and a final celebration where the students showcase their research and what they learned through their experience. More: Encouraging careers in research, CS student research and industry connections hit home – from home
Michigan AI Blog I am an editor for the Michigan AI Blog with the Artificial Intelligence lab.
Music I am a violinist, playing solo in my apartment during the pandemic. In regular times, I play with the Life Sciences Orchestra and with Campus Philharmonia Orchestra as principal second violinist. Formerly, I studied violin at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance with Yoonshin Song, and music education under the guidance of Professor Michael Hopkins, whom I assisted with his online string pedagogy textbook at stringtechnique.com. More: Gifts of Art presents Chamber Music by the U-M Life Sciences Orchestra Ensemble