Research Interests: Natural Language Interfaces, Knowledge Representation and Databases.
Teaching Interests: Databases and LLMs.
I harken from Detroit, East Lansing and Ann Arbor, Michigan and I earned a B.S. in Computer Science (honors) from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA. I was lucky to receive Pell grants and a Michigan competitive scholarship for my undergraduate degree and a DARPA AASERT award for my doctorate. Before moving to Sweden I worked in a wide variety of roles from McDonald's and other restaurants, to software sales at Software City, to intern at IBM, to consulting for local businesses, to research programmer at SPRL, to RA at UCLA, to member of the technical staff at MCC Austin, Texas.
In Sweden I have worked at both KTH and Umeå University as an associate professor of Computer Science. I also work part time at my start-up C-Phrase Technologies AB (see here). Work at this startup has given me new experiences in a wide variety of domains - from crypto to commodity markets, from medical planning to roofing.
Teaching Interests
5DV202: Introduction to Database Management
5TD004: LLMs for IT Practitioners
5DV242: LLMs in Data Management
5DV247: Database Systems and Applications
Research Interests
I have long worked at the boundary between AI and relational databases, in particular within cooperative query answering, explanation, information integration and natural language interfaces. Earlier I completed a VR project (2015-04953) investigating semantic tractability and deduction in natural language interfaces to databases (2016-2019). I also coordinated the EU STREP SpaceBook that involved both spatial databases and speech-based interfaces (2011-2014).
Relational databases have always impressed me because they have proven their usefulness in the real world and, at the same time, are rooted in logic. And if one takes full database query languages (e.g. those performing counts and other aggregation operations), then it is not merely first-order logic, but higher-order logic. My current research focuses on using logical properties of query languages to facilitate the construction and learning of natural language interfaces to databases. I am also interested in how LLMs can contribute to these topics.
Most of my publications may be downloaded. Just click on them under "Publications" and then go to "Open Access in DiVA" in the upper right corner and you should be able to download a pdf.
Contact
Contact via email is always the best way.