MAJOR RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Computational modeling and empirical investigation of language processing and learning.
• Developing and applying neural network and other machine learning technologies.
• Designing efficient methods for modeling and analyzing complex systems.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, February 2002.
  Carnegie Mellon University and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
  Dissertation: A Connectionist Model of Sentence Comprehension and Production
  Committee: David Plaut (Chair), James McClelland, David Touretzky, Maryellen MacDonald
• B.A. in Computer Science and the Program in Cognitive Studies, June 1995.
  Princeton University, summa cum laude

POSITIONS HELD

RESEARCH GRANTS

AWARDS AND HONORS

PUBLICATIONS

• Fedorenko, E., and Gibson E., and Rohde, D. (2004). Verbal working memory in sentence comprehension. To appear in Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Hillsdale, NJ. Erlbaum.
• Rohde, D.L.T. and Plaut, D.C. (2003). Less is less in language acquisition. In P. Quinlan (Ed.), Connectionist modelling of cognitive development (pp. 189-231). Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
• Rohde, D.L.T., and Plaut, D.C. (2003). Connectionist models of language processing. Cognitive Studies, 10(1), 10-28.
• Rohde, D.L.T. (2002). Methods for binary multidimensional scaling. Neural Computation, 14 (5), 1195-1232.
• Rohde, D.L.T. and Plaut, D.C. (1999). Language acquisition in the absence of explicit negative evidence: How important is starting small? Cognition, 72, 67-109.
• Rohde, D.L.T. and Plaut, D.C. (1997). Simple recurrent networks and natural language: How important is starting small? In Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 656-661, Hillsdale, NJ. Erlbaum.

PAPERS IN PREPARATION

• Rohde, D.L.T., Gonnerman, L.M., and Plaut, D.C., (in preparation) An improved method for deriving word meaning from lexical co-occurrence.
• Rohde, D.L.T. (in preparation) Improving the value of ratings by factoring out the generosity of raters.
• Rohde, D.L.T. (submitted) On the common ancestors of all living humans. American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
• Rohde, D., Olson, S., and Chang, J. (submitted) Recent common ancestors in structured populations. Nature.
• Fedorenko, E., Gibson, E., and Rohde, D. (submitted) Shared processing resources for language and math. Psychological Science.

TECHNICAL REPORTS

• Rohde, D.L.T. (2002). A Connectionist Model of Sentence Comprehension and Production. PhD thesis, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
• Rohde, D.L.T. (1999). A Connectionist Model of Sentence Comprehension and Production. PhD thesis proposal, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
• Rohde, D.L.T. (1999). LENS: The light, efficient network simulator. Technical Report CMU-CS-99-164, Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Computer Science, Pittsburgh, PA.
• Rohde, D.L.T. (1999). The Simple Language Generator: Encoding complex languages with simple grammars. Technical Report CMU-CS-99-123, Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Computer Science, Pittsburgh, PA.
• Rohde, D.L.T. (1995). Modelling the Dual-Pathway System for Practice-Related Verbal Associative Learning, Unpublished Bachelor's thesis, Computer Science Department, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

ABSTRACTS AND COMMENTARIES

• Rohde, D.L.T. (2004). Learnability, stochastic input, and connectionist networks. To appear in Journal of Child Language. [Commentary on MacWhinney, B. (2004) Multiple solutions to the logical problem of language acquisition.]
• Rohde, D.L.T. (2003). Assessing first-pass comprehension of relative clause sentences. 2003 CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing.
• Rohde, D.L.T. (2003). The on-line processing of active and passive structures in English. 2003 CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing.
• Rohde, D.L.T., and Plaut, D.C. (1999). Simple recurrent networks can distinguish non-occurring from ungrammatical sentences given appropriate task structure: Reply to Marcus. Cognition, 73, 297-300. [Commentary on Marcus, G. F. (1999). Langage acquisition in the absence of explicit negative evidence: Can simple recurrent networks obviate the need for domain-specific learning devices? Cognition, 73, 293-296.]
• Rohde, D.L.T., and Plaut, D.C. (1999). A connectionist model of sentence comprehension and production. Paper presented at the USC Sentence Production Conference, Los Angeles CA.
• Rohde, D. and Gelfand, J. (1994). A model for practice related shifts in the locus of brain activity for skill learning in verbal response tasks, Abstract 154.7, Society for Neuroscience, 24th Annual Meeting, Miami Beach, November, 1994.
• Gelfand, J., Rohde, D., Handelman, D., Lane, S., and Epstein, S. (1994). Models of the shifting of the locus of brain activity during skill learning, Abstracts, Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, March, 1994.

SOFTWARE SYSTEMS DEVELOPED

• Lens: A very fast and flexible neural network simulator used widely in academic research and teaching. Provides both graphical and scripting interfaces and supports various network types and learning algorithms.
• Linger: A platform for conducting sentence processing and other psychological experiments, now used by numerous labs. Includes tools for performing statistical analyses of the experimental results.
• TGrep2: A program that searches for patterns in tree structures. Primarily used to analyze structural frequencies in parsed language corpora.
• SLG: The Simple Language Generator, a tool and associated grammar formalism for describing, generating, and parsing naturalistic grammars. Used to create artificial languages for machine learning experiments.
• COALS: The Correlated Occurrence Analogue to Lexical Semantics. An improved method of deriving vectors representing word meaning from large corpora of raw text.
• Spawn: Simulates very large scale human mating and migration patterns and extracts data from the resulting genealogical record.
• Spindle: A non-linear method for smoothing ratings data by modeling and factoring out reviewer generosity biases.
• SVDLIBC: A C library focused on a porting of algorithms for performing singular value decompositions on large, sparse matrices.
• Avaga: An MP3 player supporting advanced song querying for better organization of and access to large collections.
• SplitIt: A suite of programs that support the rapid segmentation and normalization of sound files, primarily of speech files used in listening experiments.
• Dishrag: An implementation of distributed, shared objects in Java. (collaborative project)
• Boxcar Blockade: An adaptation of the Railroad Rush Hour puzzle game along with an algorithm for solving puzzles and discovering difficult puzzle scenarios.
• Hyperisk: An online, real-time adaptation of the game Risk. (collaborative project)
• Death of a Salesman: A pair of two-person strategy games related to the traveling salesman problem.
• Dispel: A prototype spelling correction system based on a psychological model of the processes that lead to various types of errors. (collaborative project)

INVITED TALKS

EDITORIAL ACTIVITIES

• CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing (2003)

• Artificial Intelligence; Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers; Cognition; Cognitive Science; Psychological Science; Cognitive Science Society Conferences; CUNY Conferences on Human Sentence Processing

TEACHING EXPERIENCE