People
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor in Computer Science, University of Waterloo
PhD 2024 in Computer Science, Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago
BS 2018 in Intelligence Science, Peking University
Research interests: Language grounding, grounded language learning, computational developmental linguistics, computational linguistics, interpretability, vision-language models, computational models of intuition.
Graduate Students
Yee Man (Kath) Choi
PhD Student in CS, University of Waterloo (2025-)
Advisor: Freda Shi and Krzysztof Czarnecki
MS 2025 in Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
BS 2022 in Computer Science, University of Toronto
Research interests: Large Language Models, Alignment, Human-Computer Interaction.
PhD Candidate in MME, University of Waterloo (2023-)
Advisors: Amir Khajepour and Freda Shi
MASc 2020 in MME, University of Waterloo
BSc 2018 in Mechanical Engineering, Penn State University
Research interests: Vision-language models, LLMs for vehicular science and engineering.
PhD Student in CS, University of Waterloo (2023-)
Advisor: Freda Shi
MS 2023 in Computational Linguistics, University of Washington
MS 2025 in Data Science, the University of Texas at Austin
BS 2021 in Computer Science, University of Toronto
Research interests: Computational linguistics, interpretability, vision-language models.
MMath Student in CS, University of Waterloo (2025-)
Advisor: Freda Shi
BS 2024 in Data Science, Peking University
Research interests: Computational linguistics, language science, interpretability.
MMath Student in CS, University of Waterloo (2024-)
Advisor: Freda Shi
BA 2024 in Linguistics, Zhejiang University
BS 2024 in Computer Science, Zhejiang University
Research interests: Computational linguistics.
PhD Student in CS, University of Waterloo (2024-)
Advisor: Freda Shi
MS 2023 in Computing Science, University of Alberta
BS 2019 in Computer Science, University of Jos
Research interests: Vision-language models, reinforcement learning.
MMath Student in CS, University of Waterloo (2024-)
Advisors: Freda Shi and Dan Brown
BS 2023 in Cognitive Science, University of Toronto
Research interests: Interpretability, computational creativity, computational cognitive science.
PhD Student in CS, University of Waterloo (2025-)
Advisor: Freda Shi and Robin Cohen
MS 2024 in Computer Science, University of Chicago
BA 2023 in Computational and Applied Linguistics, Peking University
Research interests: Computational linguistics, computational developmental linguistics.
Sheng Yao
MMath Student in CS, University of Waterloo (2024-)
Advisor: Freda Shi
PhD 2022 in Linguistics, The University of Hong Kong
MPhil 2018 in Linguistics, The University of Hong Kong
B. Social Science 2015, The University of Hong Kong
Research interests: Computational linguistics, computational semantics, computational phonology.
Undergraduate Students
Ryker Lin
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025-2026)
Abeer Kashar
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025-2026)
Shougan Gu
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025-2026)
Alumni
Ilia Alenabi Amlashi
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025)
Mykhailo Buleshnyi
Mitacs Globalink Research Intern
Home Institution: Ukrainian Catholic University
William Dai
Vector Research Intern
Home Institution: Yale University
Luc Antony Lorand Edes
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025)
Steffania Sierra Galvis
Vector Research Intern (2025)
Home Institution: Università di Pisa
Pin-Han Huang
Mitacs Globalink Research Intern
Home Institution: National Taiwan University
Eric Huang
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025)
Next Step: Master's student, McGill University
Haige Li
Mitacs Globalink Research Intern
Home Institution: Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Disen Liao
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2024-2025)
Tony Li
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025)
Oscar Pang
Vector Research Intern (2025)
Home Institution: University of Toronto
Visiting Student (2024)
Home Institution: Tongji University
Next Step: Master's student, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Vector Research Intern (2025)
Home Institution: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Daniel Wei
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025)
Andrew Xue
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2024)
Joseph Xiao
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025)
Jialin Yang
Waterloo Undergraduate Student (2025)
Next Step: PhD student in CS, Dartmouth College
Visiting Student (2024)
Home Institution: ETH Zurich
Next Step: PhD student in CS, University of British Columbia
Visiting Graduate Student (2025)
Home Institution: Northeastern University