Last updated: 5/9/09

This page is under construction...like, waaay under construction.
(I mean, just look at this disgusting background color...blech!)

Though it is actually rather up-to-date:
If you are looking for our data and papers on rationales, click here.
If you are looking for Z-MERT, click here.
If you are looking for my RYPT material (aka H-MERT, or human in the loop MERT), click here.
If you are looking for my publications, click here.
And here is a somewhat recent CV, if you're interested.
OH, and if you are Sammy, you're probably looking for this...


So anyway, hi, I'm Omar. I'm a PhD student at the Computer Science Department at Johns Hopkins University. I am also affiliated with The Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP) here at JHU.


I am interested in machine learning in general, especially applied to natural language processing tasks. This has led me to collaborate with people like David Yarowsky, Chris Callison-Burch and my advisor, Jason Eisner. I research ways whereby we can better utilize human annotators and their knowledge, and I develop interesting(?) models that take advantage of such human knowledge.

Other than NLP, I am interested in almost anything that allows machines to perform tasks that we (humans) are really good at, like computer vision, pattern recognition, game playing, and artificial intelligence in general. Basically anything that would get a non-CS person to go, "whoa dude...you can make my computer do that??"




You sound cool. What is your geek code?

I don't have a geek code. I have a life.