Other Awards and Honors
2007 Awards
Stephen Tratz wins first-place in 2007 SemEval international competition (Computational Linguistics)
Stephen Tratz's commitment to excellence resulted in PNNL winning first-place in the 2007 SemEval international competition for word sense disambiguation systems. In computational linguistics, word sense disambiguation helps determine which sense a word has in any given context. For example, the word bass could mean a type of fish or tones of low frequency. Although the difference may be obvious to humans, WSD can improve the performance of information and knowledge management applications, such as internet searching and navigating.
PNNL developed this particular WSD system for a Department of Homeland Security project. When lab-funding could not cover the required preparation time for the system's entry to the SemEval competition, Stephen prepared and submitted the system output on his own time, which resulted in the win. PNNL has since been invited to submit a paper that describes the system to the 2007 SemEval WSD workshop in Prague this June. Other staff members involved include Alan Chappell, National Security Directorate; and Michelle Gregory, Christian Posse, project lead Antonio Sanfilippo and Paul Whitney, CISD. (announced 5/1/2007)