The PortNLP lab is led by Dr. Ameeta Agrawal in the Department of Computer Science at Portland State University's Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science.

At PortNLP, we explore new ways to advance language technologies -- from understanding complex texts to generating multilingual summaries. We aim to design systems that are effective, efficient, fair, and human-centered. We envision a future where language technologies are trustworthy and useful in everyday life.

PortNLP started in 2021 with PI and two students focusing on a few specific domains of text summarization and multilingual language models. As we have continued to grow, our past students and present members are contributing to a wide range of topics in natural language understanding and processing.

We are also affiliated with the Coco Lab, a sister research group focused on the intersection of computer science, management, and anthropology.

Research Themes

Sponsors

This lab is grateful for the funding support from the following grants and awards:

PacTrans UTC/UDOT Human Centricity through AI - Innovating Public Engagement for Transportation Projects with Large Language Models, 2024 - 2026

NSF NAIRR 240158 - Towards Understanding and Improving Multilingual Abilities of Large Language Models, 2024

NSF HNDS-R - Understanding Drivers of Trust in Cryptocurrency Using Big Data and Ethnographic Approaches, 2023 - 2026

NSF Education DCL: EAGER - Re-imagining the Role of Humans in Security Education, 2023 - 2025

NSF CRII:RI - Toward Socially-diverse Multi-document Summarization, 2023 - 2026

NSF SAI-P - Overcoming Barriers to User-Centered Infrastructure Planning with System Modeling and Natural Language Processing, 2022 - 2025