2007 North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad

2007 International Olympiad Results

Team USA Earns Laurels at International Linguistics Olympiad

American students have won high honors in an international linguistics competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. The World Champion in the individual competition is Adam Hesterberg, a 2007 graduate of Garfield High School, Seattle, WA.

Eight high school students from the USA competed in the Fifth International Linguistics Olympiad in St. Petersburg, Russia from August 1 through 4, 2007. The top overall winner in the individual competition was Adam Hesterberg, of Seattle, WA. Jeffrey Lim of Arlington, MA received top prize for the best solution to one of the problems. One US team of four students won the top prize in the team competition in a tie with a Russian team.

The winners of the team competition were Rebecca Jacobs of Los Angeles, CA, Joshua Falk of Pittsburgh, PA, Michael Gottlieb of Dobbs Ferry, NY and Anna Tchetchetkine, of San Jose, CA.

Other American team members were Rachel Zax and Ryan Musa, both of Ithaca, NY. Rachel Zax is also the top prize winner of the US National Competition and Ryan Musa is the second prize winner. The US teams were coached by Dr. Dragomir Radev, of the University of Michigan. Dr. Lori Levin of Carnegie Mellon University, and Dr. Amy Troyani of Taylor Allderdice High School, Pittsburgh, PA, also provided leadership for the teams.

Altogether 15 teams of 4 students each competed, representing 9 different countries -- Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Russia, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and the USA. This is the first time that teams from the USA have competed in the International Linguistics Olympiad.

This is the first time that teams from the USA have competed in the International Linguistics Olympiad.

The International Linguistics Olympiad is a yearly event originating in Russia and Bulgaria in which secondary school students compete by solving linguistics problems, mostly in languages they have never learned. This year there were problems in Braille, Turkish, Tatar, Georgian, Movima (Bolivia), Hawaiian and Ndom (Papua New Guinea). See www.ilolympiad.spb.ru/ for more information about the International Linguistics Olympiad.

The US teams were selected from finalists of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) that took place on March 29, 2007. The US participation was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the North American chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Google, and private contributions from participants, families and individual contributors.

Contact:

Thomas E. Payne
Co-Chair, North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad.
tpayneuoregon.edu
541-342-6706

Lori Levin
Co-Chair
lslcs.cmu.edu