Géraldine Walther
Géraldine Walther
Head for the Concentration in Computational Linguistics (CMPL) in the MS in Data Analytics Engineering (DAEN)
Director of the Computational Linguistics Lab
Assistant Professor
Computational Linguistics, Language and cognition, Language documentation, Linguistic Typology, Morphology, Syntax
Before joining GMU in August 2019, Géraldine Walther was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Comparative Linguistics at the University of Zurich, where she worked on an SNF research project investigating the relationship between properties of adult language structure and child language acquisition in the Romansch variety of Tuatschin (spoken by approx. 1500 speakers in the Grisons, Switzerland).
She obtained her PhD from the Université Paris Diderot in 2013.
(Thesis title: Sur la canonicité en morphologie: perspective empirique, formelle et computationnelle [On canonicity in morphology: an empirical, formal, and computational approach])
Géraldine Walther is currently developing the new computational linguistics strand within the Linguistics curriculum and setting up the new Computational Linguistics Lab.
Grants and Fellowships
Grants
| 2022-2024 | $299,977 |
NSF EAGER Grant, NSF, ”Inclusive-ScamBuster: Inclusive Scam Detection Methods for Social Media to Design Assistive Tools for Protecting Individuals with Developmental Disabilities” (PI Hemant Purohit, GMU Information Sciences & Technology; Co-PI Géraldine Walther, GMU English/Linguistics; Co-PI Matt Peterson, GMU Psychology; Co-PI Yoosun Chung, GMU Special Education) |
| 2022 | $40,000 |
CCI Impact of Human Behavior on Cybersecurity, Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, NoVa Node, VA, “Characterizing Biases in Automated Scam Detection Tools for Social Media to Aid Individuals with Developmental Disabilities” (PI Hemant Purohit, GMU Information Sciences & Technology; Co-PI Géraldine Walther, GMU English/Linguistics; Co-PI Matt Peterson, GMU Psychology; Co-PI Yoosun Chung, GMU Special Education) |
| 2021-2024 | $449,709 |
NSF DEL/DLI Grant, NSF, ”Collaborative Research: DLI-DEL: Language Documentation with an AI Helper” (PI Antonios Anastasopoulos, GMU Computer Science; Co-PI Géraldine Walther, GMU English/Linguistics; Co-PI David Chiang, Notre Dame Computer Science and Engineering) |
| 2021-2022 | $29,928 |
CAHMP Seed Grant, Center for Advanced Human and Machine Partnership (CAHMP). "ScamBuster: Detecting Emergent Scam Networks on Social Media during Disasters" (PI Hemant Purohit, GMU Information Sciences & Technology; Co-PI Géraldine Walther, English/Linguistics.) |
| 2016-2018 |
€8,000 |
IXXI/ISH, “Sur le bout de la langue” modélisation mathématique de la compétition entre langues’, (with Morgane Bergot, Université Claude Bernard, Lyon (France)) |
Awards
| 2014-2016 | ~ €100,00 |
Postdoctoral fellowship, ASLAN Excellency cluster, ”Advanced Studies on LANguage complexity (ASLAN), CNRS, Lyon (France): two years of funding plus monthly salary, benefits, and additional expenses (conferences, research visits, summer schools) for developing a personal research project on “A typological approach to structural properties of morphological systems”. |
| 01-02/2012 | €2,850 |
Networds visiting grant, European Science Foundation, Surrey Morphology Group, University of Surrey (UK): six week visiting grant, collaboration on Canonical Typology with Prof. Greville G. Corbett and Prof. Dunstan Brown, on computational morphology with Prof. Dunstan Brown, on general typology with Maris Camilleri (Maltese) and Dr. Enrique Palancar (Chinantec). |
| 2007-2010 | ~ €115,000 |
PhD funding, ENS-LSH & Université Paris Diderot, Paris (France): three years of funding plus monthly salary, benefits, and additional expenses (conferences, research visits, summer schools) for PhD research “Sur la canonicité en morphologie: perspective empirique, formelle et computationnelle.” [“On canonicity in morphology: an empirical, formal, and computational approach”] |
| 2003-2007 | ~ €120,000 |
École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (Lettres et Sciences Humaines), Lyon (France): Admission to the ENS-LSH: fully paid selective 4-year studentship with monthly salary and benefits and supplementary courses in Linguistics, and German Language and Literature. |
Courses Taught
General Linguistics
Undergraduate courses
| Course number | Title | Term |
| LING 486 | Syntax I | Spring 2022, 2023 |
Graduate courses
| Course number | Title | Term |
| LING 687 | Syntax 1 | Spring 2022, 2024 Fall 2022 |
| LING 786 | Spring 2020, 2021 | |
| LING 787 | Syntax 2 | Fall 2019 |
Advanced seminars
| Course number | Title | Term | |
| LING 886 | Advanced Syntax Seminar | Tracing the Invisible: Optionality in Language |
Fall 2020 |
| LING 890 | Advanced Phonology Seminar |
Computational Linguistics
Undergraduate courses
| Course number | Title | Term |
| LING 475 | Computers and Language | Spring 2023 |
Graduate courses
| Course number | Title | (Topic) | Term |
| LING 570 | Computational and Quantitative Methods | Fall 2022, 2023 | |
| LING 517 | Spring 2025 Fall 2025 |
||
| LING 717 | Spring 2025 Fall 2025 |
||
| LING 686 | Special Topics in Linguistics | Computational Linguistics | Fall 2019, 2020 |
| Computational Typology | Spring 2020 | ||
| LING 571 | Computational Linguistics I | Spring 2026 | |
| LING 675 | Spring 2023, 2024 | ||
| LING 771 |
Computational Linguistics II | TBD | Fall 2026 |
| LING 775 | Computational Language Documentation | Spring 2025 | |
Advanced seminars
| Course number | Title | Topic | Term |
| LING 800 | Advanced Seminar in Linguistics | Computational Language Documentation | Spring 2025 |
| Models of Learning and Processing | Spring 2026 |
Language and cognition
Undergraduate courses
| Course number | Title | Term |
| LING 480 | First Language Acquisition | Fall 2023 |
Graduate courses
| Course number | Title | Term |
| LING 580 | First Language Acquisition | Fall 2023 |
| LING 641 | Fall 2025 | |
| LING 741 | Fall 2025 |
Advanced seminars
| Course number | Title | Topic | Term |
| LING 800 | Advanced Seminar in Linguistics | Models of Learning and Processing | Spring 2026 |
Linguistic variation and linguistic typology
Undergraduate courses
| Course number | Title | Term | |
Graduate courses
| Course number | Title | Term | |
| LING 686 | Special Topics in Linguistics | Computational Typology | Spring 2020 |
Advanced seminars
| Course number | Title | Term | |
| LING 886 | Advanced Syntax Seminar | Tracing the invisible: optionality in Language | Fall 2020 |
| LING 890 | Advanced Phonology Seminar |
Other
Graduate courses
| Course number | Title | Term | |
| LING 795 | Laboratory Research Experience | Variability in NP internal Information Distribution | Fall 2024 |
| LING 898 | Advanced Qualifying Seminar | Spring 2021 |
Education
| 2013 | Doctorate in Linguistics | Université Paris Diderot |
| 2007 | MA in Linguistics | INALCO Paris |
| 2006 | Agrégation externe d’allemand | |
| 2004 | BA in Linguistics | Université Lumière Lyon 2 |
| 2004 | BA in German Studies | Université Lumière Lyon 2 & ENS de Lyon |
| 2003-2007 | École Normale Supérieure | ENS de Lyon |
Dissertations Supervised
Yamei Wang, Classifier Systems: A Quantitative Investigation of Their Distribution and Function in Mandarin and Beyond (2024)