contact
Dan Parvaz
d p a r v a z a t g m a i l d o t c o m
work experience
The MITRE Corporation - Natural Language Processing Group
Working as a computational linguist on several projects involving NLP technologies, including DARPA's Transtac, as well as providing ongoing support for a number of agencies working on Information Extraction, Ontologies, and Machine Translation. Primarily involved in developing metrics and evaluation methodologies for NLP products, as well as providing detailed feedback to engineers and scientists developing products.
Essex Corporation - Intelligent Systems Group
Worked as a computational linguist on CSI's natural language processing team, contributing to information extraction (IE) efforts, including the validation of those efforts, as well as helping to extend Essex's Graphical Expression Language (GEL). Assisted in some application-oriented efforts, as well as taking the lead on participation in research competitions aimed at extending the state of the art in IE. Involved in using IE in user modelling in ARDA's NIMD program Recently lead an effort using IE to perform data disambiguation for a US Government data warehousing project. Developed programming language features, documentation, and instruction. Wrote and reviewed government grant applications.
Los Alamos National Laborotory
Worked as a computational linguistics researcher in the Distributed Systems and Modeling Team (CCS-3), on a CRADA with Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (now PARC). Performed background research on various topics in computational linguistics, making recommendations to the team on future directions in research and development. Initiated new avenues in research, designing and testing computational models employing theory and methodologies of functional and cognitive linguistics.
University of New Mexico
Functioned as the IT Resource for the UNM Linguistics department. Established networks, print servers, placed library databases online, administrated web and mail servers, and handled daily maintainance tasks (troubleshooting, software installation, etc.). Performed basic research under a UNM RAC grant on handshape in German Sign Language (DGS). Taught introductory courses in linguistics, computational linguistics, and formal syntax.
Freelance Consultant
Wrote and designed software for companies in the Amman, Jordan area to convert and provide web content in Arabic and English. Taught company employees the essentials of HTML, CGI protocols, and server-side JavaScript. Lead projects localizing internet content for use in the Arab world. Designed a well-reviewed search engine for Middle-Eastern web sites (www.arabist.com).
Freelance Consultant
Helped clients in the Provo, Utah area develop multiplatform, laserdisc-based instruction software. Designed tools for handling complex orthographies, bidirectional text processing, concordance building, and translation management. Development platforms ranged from high-speed compiled code to MS Word macros.
Baron Blakeslee
Worked as a programmer, designing software on a variety of single-board and desktop architectures for the control and and monitoring of industrial autoclaves and ovens.
education
University of New Mexico
PhD student in Linguistics; MS student in Computer Science
University of New Mexico
MA in Linguistics
Brigham Young University
BA in Linguistics with minors in Arabic and Philosophy
talks and publications
Parvaz, D. 2001. A New Look at the Link Between Monastic Sign Languages and the Signed Languages of the Deaf. Presented at the second conference of the High Desert Linguistics Society -- Albuquerque, NM.
Parvaz, D. 2003. Metonymy in Signed Nomenclature. Presented at the eighth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference -- Logroño, Spain.
Day, J. and Parvaz, D. In Process. Extracting User State from Computer Interactions Using Ontological Knowledge. To be submitted to KDD 2005.
Parvaz, D. 2004. New wine in old skins - on the perils of cognitive semantics in non-cognitive frameworks. Presented at the Workshop on the Potential of Cognitive Semantics for Ontologies (FOIS 2004)
Wilcox, S., Blankemeyer-Burke, T. and Parvaz, D. 2007. Ethics and language use in human intelligence settings. Defense Intelligence Journal.Jan. 2007.
Parvaz, D. 2007. Gestural Phonology for Gestural Languages, or: Why models matter. Presented at the Visual and Iconic Language conference (VaIL 2007).
skills
Operating systems: UNIX (including Linux, FreeBSD, and MacOS X), Microsoft MS-DOS, Windows 9x and Windows 2000, Mac OS.
Applications: MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, FileMaker, AppleWorks, StarOffice
Networking: Establishing LANs and Intranets, to include sharing resources among different platforms.
Programming: C/C++, Perl, Java, Shell scripting, HTML (including considerations for designing Arabic webpages), XML, Javascript, CGI programming, MATLAB, GEL
Languages: English, Persian, Arabic, French, and American Sign Language. Familiarity with Spanish, German, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac, Sanskrit, and Jordanian Sign Language.
Bronze Star for meritorious service during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991.
Current security clearance: DOD Top Secret (Interim)
Reference
Available upon request.