PhD Supervision

Thank you for your interest in pursuing a PhD in Computer Science under my supervision.

NLP Topics I'm Interested In:

• Automatic Text Summarisation (Extractive and Abstractive)
• Arabic and Multilingual NLP
• NLP for Low and Under-resourced Languages
• Financial Narratives Processing and Financial NLP
• Biomedical NLP
• Information Extraction and Document Structure Detection
• Text Classification, Clustering, and Machine Learning
• Corpus Linguistics and Computational Linguistics
• Language and Dialect Identification
• Interdisciplinary and Cross-domain NLP

PhD Supervision at Two Institutions

I currently supervise PhD students at both Lancaster University (UK) and VinUniversity (Vietnam). If you're interested in working with me, please make it clear in your initial contact whether you’re applying for a PhD at Lancaster or at VinUniversity, as the application procedures differ.

Current PhD Students

• Salim Al Mandhari – Arabic Automatic Readability Assessment (Lancaster)
• Gigi Alshahrani – Offensive Language Detection in Arabic Dialects (Lancaster)
• Damith Dola Mullage – Detecting Ethical Misconduct in Legal Documents Using Deep Learning (Lancaster)
• Jesse Phillips – Automated Generation of Coherent Source Code Documentation Using NLP (Lancaster)

Previous PhD Students

• Dr Chiamaka Chukwuneke – Named Entity Recognition for African Languages: A Focus on Igbo
• Dr Nadhem Zmandar – Multilingual Financial Summarisation

Before You Apply

1. Ensure your topic aligns with one or more of the NLP areas listed above. I won’t respond to topics unrelated to NLP or Computational Linguistics.
2. Come with a clear idea of your research interests. Please do not email asking for a topic.
3. Prepare a 1–2 page proposal outlining the problem, methodology, and background.
4. Demonstrate strong programming skills (preferably in Python) and familiarity with at least two NLP libraries.
5. Include an up-to-date CV showing your academic and research experience.
6. Clearly indicate whether you are interested in a PhD at Lancaster or VinUniversity.
7. Email your proposal and CV to me for feedback before applying formally.

How to Apply

• If I express interest in your proposal, I will invite you to apply formally.
• For Lancaster University: apply via this link, and make sure to mention my name in your application.
• For VinUniversity: see the PhD programme details and application instructions here.

What Happens Next

• If your application is shortlisted, the relevant department will contact me to arrange an interview.
• The interview will focus on your research proposal, NLP knowledge, and programming abilities.
• If needed, you may be asked to complete a short programming task.
• We’ll also answer any questions you have about the PhD programme, the university, and the surrounding city.

Best wishes and good luck