Welcome, Professor Mrinmaya Sachan
20.08.2020 | Anna Ettlin
Mrinmaya Sachan officially joined the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich in July 2020 as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. Due to the coronavirus crisis, his arrival was postponed until August. Get to know him in this short interview.
Professor Sachan, welcome to ETH Zurich. What are your current research interests?
I am interested in designing machine learning approaches for natural language processing, knowledge discovery and reasoning. I am also interested in the application of these approaches in education.
What is the impact of your research on society?
Natural language processing, knowledge discovery and reasoning form the core of many AI technologies such as personal assistants, machine translation, question answering, summarisation, etc. These technologies are now pervasive, and we use them in our day-to-day lives.
Where were you working before you came to ETH?
I was a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University and then briefly a research assistant professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC).
Which courses will you be teaching at ETH?
I will be teaching courses in natural language processing and/or machine learning.
What are your first impressions of Switzerland and ETH?
I have been to Switzerland a few times before as a tourist and enjoyed all of my visits. It is a beautiful country and the people are welcoming. I have also enjoyed my interactions with the faculty and students in the department. Everyone has been extremely helpful.