NLP in Python: Unleashing the power of spaCy

Abstract of the talk:
Ever wonder about how to do natural language processing (NLP) in Python? In this talk, we explore spaCy — a pretty popular open-source library for NLP. Through a series of simple examples, we will understand how to use spaCy in a practical setting. In particular, we will look into common NLP tasks like tokenization, sentence segmentation, lemmatization, noun chunking, named entity recognition, etc. In the latter part of the talk, we will discuss how to extend spaCy's capabilities by adding custom components to it through a worked example: a simple noun chunker based on spaCy's part-of-speech (POS) tagging.

About the speaker:
Mario Garcia-Armas is a machine learning engineer at Flipboard (https://flipboard.com/), working primarily in natural language processing. In 2015, he received a PhD in Mathematics from the University of British Columbia, specializing in algebra and algebraic geometry. Before joining Flipboard, he worked at A Thinking Ape Inc. for 3+ years, where he built their recommendation engine and revenue prediction pipeline.

About the venue:
Northeastern’s downtown Vancouver campus currently offers the Master of Science in Computer Science program with focused specializations in Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Software Engineering. Tailored to Vancouver’s needs as a world innovation hub, the degree programs offer working professionals a clear path to advancing their careers. Northeastern University's world-renowned experiential approach empowers students, faculty, alumni, and partners to create impact far beyond the confines of discipline, degree, and campus.

Schedule for the event:

17:45 - Doors open - our hosts will meet you by the elevator and take you to the event space.

18:05 - Introductions

18:15 - Talk and Q/A

19:20 - Cleanup and head to a local restaurant to continue the conversation!