Yan Cong
- Assistant Professor // SLC
- Assistant Professor // Chinese // SLC
- Assistant Professor // Linguistics // SIS
- Assistant Professor // Cornerstone
Research Focus
Chinese and Computational Linguistics
Office and Contact
Room: SC 107
Email: cong4@purdue.edu
Bio
Yan studies how people use and understand language and applies insights from linguistics to make AI systems smarter, more reliable, and better at interpreting meaning. Previously, Yan was an NLP researcher at the Feinstein Institutes. She received her PhD in Linguistics from Michigan State University in 2021, with an additional specialization in Cognitive Science.
Specializations
Semantics, pragmatics, Chinese linguistics, natural language processing, educational NLP, clinical NLP
Affiliation
Yan's research examines how linguistic insights can inform the design and evaluation of AI systems, with a particular focus on whether and how AI models capture the meanings people communicate beyond what is explicitly said. She also applies NLP methods to study language learners and individuals living with disorders and illness, including how language is learned, lost, and relearned.