The Mind Matters speaker series bridges the gap between your coursework and the real-world impact of Cognitive Science. Join us to hear leading academics reveal how the fields of linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and philosophy intersect, offering both practical insights and ethical discussions relevant to today’s rapidly changing society!

Our first speaker is Dr. Huteng Dai. He is an assistant professor of computational linguistics and phonology. Dr. Dai is affiliated with the U‑M AI Lab, Department of Linguistics, the Michigan Center for Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics, and the Weinberg Institute of Cognitive Science. Dr. Dai's research focuses on understanding how humans and machines learn languages, especially sound patterns, from noisy, real-world data. He has integrated insights from formal language theory and machine learning to build a computational theory of phonological learning.

Dr. Dai currently is teaching LING 123: The ABC's of Python: Language, Mind, and the Nature of Programming and will be teaching LING 513: Phonology in WN26.