Profile

Ruslan Mitkov is a Professor of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University, actively working on different research topics from the areas of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computational Linguistics and Translation Technology. He completed his PhD at Technical University of Dresden under the supervision of Nikolaus Joachim Lehmann and before that graduated from Humboldt University of Berlin. Prior to joining Lancaster University, Prof Mitkov worked at the University of Wolverhampton where he created and led the internationally leading Research Group in Computational Linguistics, and was also Director of the Research Institute of Information and Language Processing as well as Director of the Responsible Digital Humanities Lab. He is Distinguished Viaiting Professor at the University of Alicante.

Dr Mitkov has published more than 280 refereed papers and is best known for his extensively cited contributions to anaphora resolution, his seminal work on computer-aided generation of multiple-choice tests as well as for his research on the development of new generation translation memory systems. His considerable contributions also include but are not limited the following NLP and Translation Technology topics: identification of cognates and false friends, text simplification, translation universals, bilingual term extraction, centering and evaluation. Prof Mitkov is passionate about using NLP for the benefit of society and more particularly, NLP for language disorders. He has done pioneering work on the use of NLP tools to assist people with autism.

Mitkov is the sole editor of the Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics (Oxford University Press) and the author of the book Anaphora Resolution (published by Longman), which have become standard textbooks in their fields. The second, substantially revised edition of the Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics was published in June 2022. He is also the Executive Editor of the Cambridge University Press journal Natural Language Engineering as well as the Editor-in-Chief of John Benjamins’ book series in Natural Language Processing.

Prof Mitkov has supervised more than 30 PhD theses and more than 40 (including 26 two-year) Master dissertations to successful completion.

Prof Mitkov is Chair/Programme Chair of a number of international conferences on Natural Language Processing and Translation Technology such as Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing (RANLP), Computational and corpus-based Phraseology (Europhras), Human-Informed Translation and Interpreting Technology (HiT-IT), New Trends in Translation and Technology (NeTTT) and many others. He has been keynote or invited speaker at more than 230 international conferences. Forthcoming conferences and events in the 2023-2024 academic year where Prof Mitkov is keynote speaker include (but are not limited to) the Translation Forum (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), the International Conference on Natural Language Processing ICON'2023 (Goa, India, December 2023), KaniTamil2024 conference (Chennai, India, February 2024), the International Annual Meeting on Computer-Assisted Translation and Terminology JIAMCATT organised by UNESCO (Paris, France, March 2024), the 7th International Conference on English and ESP Lexicology and Lexicography: Computational Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence LexESP-GPLSI 2024 (Alicante, Spain, May 2024), the 15th International Corpus Linguistics conference CILC2024 (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, May 2024), the Language Technologies in Academic Settings: Forward-Looking event (Edinburgh, June 2024), La Rioja Connection. International Network of Computational Linguistics, Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence applied to language (La Rioja, Spain, June 2024), the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society conference SALALS (Johannesburg, South Africa, June 2024), the University of Complutense Summer School (El Escorial, Spain, July 2024), the Lancaster University Summer School in Natural Language Processing (Lancaster, July 2024). He is also invited speaker at the AU-KBC Research Centre for Emerging Technologies & Department of Computer Technology of MIT Campus of Anna University (Chennai, India, December 2023), the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University (Lancaster, May, 2024), Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland, May 2024) and the Evolution of TC 2024 conference (Sofia, Bulgaria, June 2024).

Ruslan Mitkov is a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, Marie Curie Fellow, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon, France and Distinguished Visiting Researcher at the University of Malaga, Spain.

Mitkov designed (and is still leading) the first and only Erasmus Mundus Master’s Programme in Technology for Translation and Interpreting (EM TTI) – an innovative and inspirational programme, with a strong research focus but an equally strong emphasis on business; leading companies in the global translation and language industry participate as associated partners.

In September 2022 the renowned National Board of Medical Examiners (USA) presented Prof Mitkov with a certificate of distinguished collaboration which resulted in lasting impact on the strategic planning and decision making of the US organisation and their employment of NLP solutions to assessment for the last 17 years.

In recognition of his outstanding professional/research achievements, Prof Mitkov was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa three times. First, he was became Doctor Honoris Cause at Plovdiv University in November 2011. At the end of October 2014 Dr Mitkov was conferred Professor Honoris Causa at Veliko Tarnovo University and on 25 October 2022 Prof R Mitkov received the title ‘Doctor Honoris Cause’ for the third time, this time awarded by New Bulgarian University, Sofia.