2023Q1 Reports: NAACL

Report from NAACL, February 2023

Contributions to this report by:

• Luciana Benotti (NAACL chair)
• Heng Ji (NAACL secretary)
• Jonathan May (NAACL treasurer)
• Colin Cherry (past chair)
• Yunyao Li (recently elected board member)
• Diyi Yang (board member)
• Thamar Solorio (board member)

Executive Committee Meetings

The board had a meeting on July 27 2022. The next meeting will be scheduled in March or April 2023, after the ACL exec Q1 meeting. Additionally, the board converses regularly by email.

NAACL Election

NAACL recently held elections. We composed a nomination committee led by Marie-Catherine de Marneffe, and set up the voting platform for the NAACL membership to vote on the nominated candidates. The voter turnout was 18%. Two new board members were elected (Yunyao Li and Wei Xu), and the treasurer was re-elected (Jonathan May).

Regional Americas Fund

The call was issued in English, Portuguese and Spanish in March 2023. Once the call closes we will choose our top candidates and allot awards as appropriate; the exact number of awards and total we will support will depend on refinements to the current NAACL budget.

JSALT 2022

The goal is to send 3rd or 4rth year undergraduates from the Americas to an NLP summer school at JHU, which takes place during the first two weeks of the JSALT Summer Workshop (June 13 - 24). 2022 call https://naacl.org/calls/summerschool/2022/index.html; 2022 workshop page: https://www.clsp.jhu.edu/2022-eighth-frederick-jelinek-memorial-summer-workshop/. Here is a summary of this year’s participation:

• Winners: 3 students (Brasilia Brazil, 2x Buenos Aires Argentina) out of 10 applicants
• Reduced total number of awards to give (almost) full travel reimbursement
• Dodged some serious visa issues mostly through luck and determined students

NAACL Conference in 2024

NAACL 2021 was originally intended for Mexico City but happened online. The venue will be used for NAACL 2024. The board selected Katrin Erk as GC. We are in the process of selecting program chairs.

NAACL Conference in 2025

The board is deciding the location.

NAACL Officers as of February 20, 2023 and goals per member

• Chair: Luciana Benotti - Luciana goal for 2023 is to lead the organization of the committees for NAACL 2024 and interact with the ACL exec as an interface with DEI organizations such as EquiCL, WiNLP, Khipu, LatinX and others.
• Secretary: Heng Ji
• Treasurer: Jonathan May
• Past Chair: Colin Cherry
• Executive Board Members:
  • Wei Xu
  • Yunyao Li - Yunyao’s goals for 2023 are to (1) bridge academic and industry research, (2) promote interdisciplinary work, and (3) support the growth of our community.
  • Anna Rumshisky
  • Thamar Solorio - Thamar is working with Diyi and other external members of the community on a survey about the current state of NLP and perceived barriers by young researchers and/or researchers in different research environments. We hope this survey can inform our community on how best to support researchers in small research groups or with limited access to research resources.
  • Diyi Yang - Diyi is working with Thamar and other external members to work on a survey about the current state of NLP community. In addition to this, I’d be interested in helping WiNLP and other DEI related activities.