Anoop Sarkar SFU Computer Science

Biography

Anoop Sarkar is Professor of Computer Science at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada where he co-directs the Natural Language Laboratory.

His research uses machine learning methods applied to natural language processing, specifically neural machine translation between all human languages, tackling ambiguity in language using parsing algorithms. He has an interest in computational decipherment of ancient scripts and mysterious manuscripts.

Anoop Sarkar is the recipient of a 2013 and 2017 NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement award, a 2014 and 2009 Google Faculty Award, 2008 IBM Faculty Award and a 2012 NSERC Collaborative Research and Development Grant with industrial contributions from Boeing and AeroInfo Systems. He received the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2007 by the SFU Undergraduate Computing Science Student Society (CSSS).

Anoop Sarkar received his PhD from the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania under Prof. Aravind Joshi for his work on semi-supervised statistical parsing using Tree-Adjoining Grammars. Based on this background, he continues to be interested in formal-language theory (finite-state transducers, tree automata and stochastic formal grammars).

Employment history

  • Professor of Computer Science, Simon Fraser University, from September 2015.
  • Associate Professor of Computer Science, Simon Fraser University, September 2009 to August 2015.
  • Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Simon Fraser University, September 2002 to August 2009.
  • Postdoctoral fellow, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science (IRCS), June 2002 to August 2009.
  • PhD, Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania, 2002.
  • Research Associate, Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), 1991-1993.
  • B.Eng, Computer Engineering, University of Pune (PICT), 1991.