Research Overview

Research

I build computational models of language — how it is used, how it encodes social meaning, and increasingly, how well today's LLMs actually capture it. My work sits at the intersection of NLP, pragmatics, and formal linguistics, combining machine learning with deep theoretical grounding in how humans communicate.

Currently

Active Work

Research in progress at ZAS Berlin, at the intersection of LLM evaluation and computational pragmatics.

Accepted · CMCL 2026
LLM Calibration Metrics for Social Meaning Tasks
Developing two novel evaluation metrics — ESR (Evaluation Score Ratio) and CDS (Calibration Distance Score) — to assess how well frontier LLMs predict human social evaluations. Testing GPT-4, Claude, and Gemini across politeness, precision, and register tasks under varied prompting conditions.
LLM evaluation calibration social meaning GPT · Claude · Gemini
→ Accepted at CMCL 2026 · follow-up targeting ACL/EMNLP
In Progress
Benchmarking LLMs Against Human Pragmatic Judgments
Building a benchmark of fine-grained pragmatic evaluation tasks — politeness, self-presentation, register choices — drawn from controlled human experiments. Goal: assess whether LLMs exhibit human-like calibration on social meaning or systematically diverge.
benchmarking pragmatics human evaluation NLP
→ Targeting ACL / EMNLP
In Progress
Probabilistic Speaker Models of Social Meaning
Extending Rational Speech Act (RSA) and game-theoretic frameworks to model how speakers make strategic linguistic choices — including (im)precision, politeness, and register — and how these choices convey social meaning beyond literal content.
speaker modeling RSA pragmatics register
→ Part of SFB 1412 Register project at ZAS Berlin
In Progress
Strategic Choices in Indirect Requests
Modeling the pragmatic mechanisms behind indirect speech acts — when and why speakers choose indirect over direct requests, and what this reveals about the interplay of politeness, social context, and communicative efficiency.
indirect speech acts game theory pragmatics
→ Presented at Leibniz MMS Days 2025
Across 15+ Years

Research Themes

Recurring questions that have shaped my work across projects, methods, and institutions.

⚖️
Core Theme
LLM Evaluation & Calibration
Do large language models capture social meaning the way humans do? I develop metrics and benchmarks to test LLM calibration on fine-grained pragmatic tasks — politeness, precision, register — using human judgments as ground truth.
ESR · CDS metrics · CMCL 2026 (accepted)
💬
Core Theme
Pragmatics & Social Meaning
How do speakers use language strategically — choosing words not just for content but for social effect? I model politeness, (im)precision, and register as the outcomes of rational communicative choices with social consequences.
Linguistics & Philosophy 2021 · Linguistics Vanguard 2022 · ELM3 2024
🔁
Core Theme
Language Dynamics & Evolution
How do linguistic conventions emerge, spread, and change across populations? I use agent-based simulations and evolutionary game theory to model language change, grammaticalization, and the evolution of semantic ambiguity.
Synthese 2021 · Morphology 2017 · AI & Society 2019
🕸️
Core Theme
Signaling & Social Networks
How do signaling conventions form and propagate through social networks? I study the interplay of local interaction, network structure, and population-level behavior using multi-agent models and network theory.
Games 2022 · AI & Society 2019 · Ph.D. Thesis 2013
🎮
Core Theme
Game Theory & Formal Modeling
Game-theoretic frameworks — signaling games, evolutionary dynamics, reinforcement learning — provide precise tools for modeling the strategic dimensions of communication and the emergence of linguistic conventions.
Experimental Economics 2022 · Games 2019 · Fundamenta Informaticae 2018
🧪
Core Theme
Experimental & Empirical Methods
Formal models need empirical grounding. I design behavioral experiments (LabVanced, Prolific) and apply statistical modeling (Python, R, mixed-effects) to test theoretical predictions against human data.
ELM 2024 · Social Meaning Berlin 2023 · EvoSAL 2019–2021
Project History

Past Projects

Funded research projects and institutional affiliations that shaped the current work.

2020 – present DFG · SFB 1412
Modeling Meaning-Driven Register Variation
As Senior Researcher in the collaborative research centre SFB 1412 "Register", I develop probabilistic models of register variation — investigating how speakers adapt their language choices to social context, and what this tells us about the strategic and social dimensions of meaning.
ZAS Berlin, Germany Project site →
2019 – 2021 NAWA · €75K
EvoSAL: The Evolution of Semantic Ambiguity in the Lab
As PI of this NAWA Ulam-funded project, I developed iterated learning models of semantic ambiguity and tested predictions experimentally. The computational models outperformed established theoretical baselines, with results published in Synthese (2021) and Games (2022).
Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland Project site →
2017 – 2019 EU H2020
ODYCCEUS: Opinion Dynamics & Cultural Conflicts
As postdoctoral researcher in this Horizon 2020 project, I designed reinforcement learning models combining cognitive frames and game-theoretic dynamics to predict cooperation in multi-agent interactions — introducing a new RL paradigm that outperformed existing models across five key metrics.
Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italy Project site →
2013 – 2017 ERC Advanced
EVOLAEMP: Language Evolution — The Empirical Turn
As postdoctoral researcher in this ERC Advanced Grant project, I developed computational sociolinguistic models using agent-based simulation and network analysis. This period included visiting research stays at Stanford, UC Irvine, Ohio State, and Toulouse.
University of Tübingen, Germany Related publications →
// Computational Methods
LLM evaluation — calibration metrics, prompt engineering, human-model comparison
Deep learning — PyTorch, HuggingFace Transformers, fine-tuning
Agent-based modeling — multi-agent simulations, evolutionary dynamics, NetLogo
Reinforcement learning — fictitious play, replicator dynamics, multi-agent RL
Statistical modeling — Bayesian inference, mixed-effects models, Python/R
// Theoretical Frameworks
Game-theoretic pragmatics — signaling games, RSA, strategic communication
Evolutionary linguistics — population dynamics, language change, iterated learning
Formal semantics — truth conditions, scalar implicature, register theory
Network theory — social networks, convention propagation, small-world models
Experimental pragmatics — behavioral experiments, LabVanced, Prolific