Esther Seyffarth

I am a PhD student in computational linguistics at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany.

My name is pronounced like this: [ɛstər za͜ɪfərt]. I typically use she/her pronouns, unless I’m hanging out on oulipo.social, where established pronouns are invalid.

I work in the DFG-financed project Unsupervised Frames Induction: Event Type Hierarchies and Complex Event Types (FInd), together with Prof. Laura Kallmeyer and Dr Younes Samih. The project is concerned with unsupervised semantic frame induction for events described by verbs, using techniques from probabilistic frame modeling and from machine learning. It grew out of the DFG-financed SFB 991, project B08, which ended in 2020.

My research focus is on verb alternations and how they relate to (and complicate) frame induction. My thesis is advised by Prof. Laura Kallmeyer, Prof. Wiebke Petersen, and Dr Kilian Evang.

In my teaching, I follow a set of guidelines detailed here (in German) and here (in English). If you participate in one of my classes, please read this document at least once and make sure you’ve understood everything in it.

News

Feb 28, 2023 I am about to be on the job market!
May 30, 2022 I’m back from parental leave and ready to dive back into my research!
May 4, 2022 I received the 2022 Diversity Award from HHU for my teaching guidelines. More info: https://www.hhu.de/news-einzelansicht/engagiert-und-vielfaeltig-forschen-lehren-und-studieren
Jun 30, 2021 I’m organizing a PhD Day at KONVENS 2021! More info: https://konvens2021.phil.hhu.de/phd-day/
Mar 10, 2020 Until further notice, I will not be spending time in my office on campus. Members of HHU can reach me via RocketChat. My preferred video call platforms are 1. WebEx, 2. Jitsi Meet, 3. Zoom.
Nov 18, 2019 In 2019, my colleague Benjamin Burkhardt and I received the Heinrich Heine University’s €10,000 e-learning award “hein@ward” for our class “Einführung in die Computerlinguistische Programmierung mit Python”.