Graeme Hirst
Graeme Hirst researches computational linguistics, ambiguity and word meaning. He completed Brown doctoral study in 1983 and joined Toronto’s faculty in 1984. His books include a 1981 study of anaphora and a 1987 account of semantic interpretation and ambiguity. He served as ACL treasurer from 2008 to 2017 and became a Fellow in 2019. He became emeritus in 2020, and his later coauthored publications study quotations and emotion in literary texts.
- Now at
- University of Toronto
- Works
- 322
- Citations
- 13,542
- h-index
- 54
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1979–1984
Language research and a Toronto career
Hirst studied for a doctorate at Brown from 1979 to 1983 and wrote a thesis on semantic interpretation against ambiguity under Eugene Charniak. He became an assistant professor at Toronto in 1984. He published a 1981 monograph on anaphora in language understanding.
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1987
Semantic interpretation and ambiguity
Hirst published Semantic Interpretation and the Resolution of Ambiguity in 1987. His related research includes papers on word senses, syntactic interpretation and lexical ambiguity.
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2008–2019
Professional service and recognition
Hirst served as ACL treasurer from 2008 to 2017 and became a Fellow in 2019. He also received teaching awards and held academic appointments.
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2020 and later
Emeritus work and language applications
Hirst became emeritus in 2020. Hirst coauthored 2023 work on quotation attribution and 2024 research on emotion dynamics in novels. These publications connect language analysis with literary text.
Sources and credits
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