Allie Lahnala

I am Ph.D. student advised by Prof. Lucie Flek at the University of Bonn, Germany in the Conversational AI and Social Analytics (CAISA) lab, studying natural language processing (NLP). I began my Ph.D. studies at the University of Michigan with Prof. Rada Mihalcea in the LIT lab.

My research focuses on computational social science and conversation dynamics in goal-oriented settings and interpersonal interactions involving particular social intents, such as persuasion and offering support. I work with various domains and contexts, such as online forums for supportive and opinionated interactions, and clinical conversations, in which I investigate stance dynamics and empathetic interactions, and transfer learning to better model social NLP tasks. I am also interested in developing theory-driven empathy research approaches for NLP that consider the complex affective and cognitive processes and social factors that influence empathetic expression and perception.