Mehrdad Rafiepour's Image
Mehrdad Rafiepour

 mehrdad.rafie.p (at) gmail

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About Me

I'm an NLP researcher specializing in transformer-based models for natural language understanding. I hold an M.Sc. in Computer Software Engineering from the University of Kashan, where I developed "CTRAN," the current state-of-the-art for the slot-filling task.

I'm interested in improving large language models by enhancing their capability to understand structured data where the structure itself contains information. This field poses new challenges that are handled on a case-by-case basis right now. The next step is to automate this process so an LLM can easily comprehend the structure while reading the data.

In general, I think NLP is at the forefront of science and will reshape how we live our lives in the near future. This change should be for the good and be focused on improving our quality of life. Currently, LLM's application in healthcare is one field I find most fascinating.

Prior to graduate school and alongside my undergraduate studies, I spent five years as an entrepreneur, programming mobile apps & backend services for the local market. My background in both the industry and academia gives me a unique perspective on their challenges and benefits. I'm choosing to stay in academia in the future because I feel there is no point in discovering new knowledge if you're the only one benefiting from it.  

I am currently seeking PhD positions starting in 2025! If you know of any faculty specializing in my research interests below who are looking for students, please reach out via email at mehrdad.rafie.p (at) gmail. I am also open to productive collaborations. If you share my research interests, please get in touch.

Research Interests

🔹 Large Language Models:
         ▫️ Instruction-Following
         ▫️ Explainability
         ▫️ Evaluation
         ▫️ MultiLingual & Lowresource Languages
         ▫️ Augmentation with Graphs
🔹 Dialogue systems
🔹 Natural Language Processing for Social Good
🔹 Natural Language Understanding

Education

  M.Sc. in Computer Engineering, University of Kashan

Thesis:

Proposing a Model for Natural Language Understanding Using Deep Neural Networks

Sep 2019 - Feb 2023

  B.Sc. in Computer Engineering, University of Qom

Thesis:

Designing and Implementing the Assistant Program for the Visually Impaired in Android

Sep 2013 - Feb 2018
News
Invited to  serve on the program committee for CLPsych 2025 - NAACL2025. Feb 2025
Invited to  serve as a reviewer for COLING 2025. Nov 2024
I successfully defended my M.Sc. Thesis at University of Kashan! Feb 2023
CTRAN's article is accepted by prestigious Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence journal. Sep 2022
I gave an oral presentation at the 2nd national conference of informatics entitled "Distinguishing dense networks from pseudo-tree networks for link prediction based on homogeneity and heterogeneity criteria" Dec 2021

My article on an appropriate criteria for detecting the proper link-prediction method has been accepted by the 2nd national conference of informatics Oct 2021

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Mehrdad Rafiepour

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Email: mehrdad.rafie.p (at) gmail

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