Aleksandr's Adventure through Multilingual AI

Hello Aleksandr, please tell us something about yourself.

My name is Aleksandr Perevalov, I represent the University of Paderborn. I’ve completed my master’s degree in Data Science in 2020. Now, I am doing my PhD and working in a research project. All my work is focused around Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, Knowledge Graphs, and Web Engineering. In my free time, I spend time with my family. I love to do sports, mostly extreme ones (snowboarding, skateboarding, water skiing) and read about economics, politics, and history.

Why did you choose to study, work and research in this field?

Initially, I started my higher education in computer science. At the end of my bachelor’s, I discovered what AI & Machine Learning is and what exciting applications it has. Especially, I was keen on Chatbots and Dialogue Systems. So, I turned myself in this direction and that is how I ended up with my Master’s in data science. Now, my PhD topic is about Multilingual Question Answering. I chose the multilingual aspect as I had to learn a new language – German – from scratch. So, I thought why can’t I teach a machine a new language?

What is your project about and with whom are you collaborating on it?

I collaborate with Springer Nature (part of Holtzbrinck), we work on the Springer Materials product, which is a large database about Material Science. The goal of my project is to provide this product with an enhanced guided search engine that is able to work in multiple languages. There, we work a lot with Language Models and Knowledge Graphs.

How could your project be applied in the future?

I believe that my project can generate a lot of scientific insights, because applying general methods to a new domain, in this case – Material Science, is always valuable in the research community. From the industry perspective, the developments of my project can potentially attract more customers to the Springer Materials and make the product more visible by integrating the multilingual aspect. Expanded network of customers of course leads to an increased success of the company in terms of financial gain.

What are the benefits of participating in the "Software Campus" for you as a tech and AI-focused doctoral student?

The participation in the Software Campus brings many benefits to me as a PhD student, first of all, the trainings provided by the program help me to learn new things in the soft-skill direction. The budget provided for the project supports the possible opportunities of my PhD project and brings it to a new level. Of course, the collaboration with Springer Nature is one of the most valuable things for me as it provides many insights on how my scientific insights can be applied in real life. Finally, I met a lot of new people including other PhD students, people from HR, and higher management – it is always inspiring to talk with these people and exchange your energy, experience with them.

What collaboration and network opportunities have you had / will you have during the program?

I already had multiple events within the Software Campus, such as leadership and psychological trainings, meetings at the Partner’s office, Holtzbrinck technology day, and Software Campus summit. Every event for me is always about learning something new and of course meeting new people. However, with some participants I’ve already met multiple times. With many of them we found a common ground, and I’m always pleased to meet them again and again :)