PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Julian Brooke

Julian Brooke is a computational linguist whose research covers sentiment analysis and the style of language. He studied symbolic systems at Stanford and linguistics at Simon Fraser University, where he coauthored "Lexicon-Based Methods for Sentiment Analysis" in 2011; the paper proposed the SO-CAL method and won the ACL Test-of-Time Paper Award in 2021. At the University of Toronto, he earned a PhD in computer science with Graeme Hirst, studied the voices of Eliot's poem The Waste Land, and coauthored the GutenTag tool for Project Gutenberg texts in 2015. After moving to the University of Melbourne, he coauthored Deep-speare, a neural model of poetic language, in 2018. He taught at UBC, helped develop its Master of Data Science in Computational Linguistics, and by 2022 was a researcher on AI and machine learning at Boosted.ai, a Toronto-based company that applies AI tools to investing.

Timeline

  1. By 2009

    Master's at Simon Fraser

    He earns a Bachelor's in Symbolic Systems at Stanford University and a Master's in Linguistics at Simon Fraser University. His 2009 MA thesis is A Semantic Approach to Text Sentiment Analysis.

  2. 2011

    The SO-CAL sentiment paper

    While an MA student at Simon Fraser University, he coauthors "Lexicon-Based Methods for Sentiment Analysis" with Maite Taboada, Milan Tofiloski, Kimberly Voll and Manfred Stede, published in Computational Linguistics in 2011. The paper proposes the Semantic Orientation CALculator (SO-CAL) and argues for its superiority over alternative methods for sentiment analysis.

  3. By 2013

    PhD research with Graeme Hirst

    He is a PhD student in the computational linguistics group at the University of Toronto, working with Graeme Hirst. His doctoral research demonstrates the key role of the lexicon in stylistic variation, and in 2013 the two coauthor the NAACL paper "A Multi-Dimensional Bayesian Approach to Lexical Style," which adapts the LDA topic model to represent stylistic lexical information. He goes on to receive a PhD in computer science from Toronto.

  4. 2012–2015

    Voices in The Waste Land

    With Adam Hammond and Graeme Hirst, he applies unsupervised techniques in computational stylistics to distinguish the voices in Eliot's poem The Waste Land, in papers from 2012, 2013 and 2015. The 2015 article appears in Linguistic Issues in Language Technology.

  5. 2015

    The GutenTag tool

    In 2015, he, Adam Hammond and Graeme Hirst present GutenTag at the Fourth Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Literature. The tool is an NLP-driven resource for digital humanities research in the Project Gutenberg corpus.

  6. 2017–2018

    Multiword lexicons and Deep-speare

    He moves to the University of Melbourne. In 2017, he coauthors with Jan Šnajder and Timothy Baldwin a Transactions of the ACL paper on acquiring multiword lexicons from large corpora through competition among n-gram candidates. In 2018, he coauthors Deep-speare, a joint neural model of poetic language, meter and rhyme, with Jey Han Lau, Trevor Cohn, Timothy Baldwin and Adam Hammond.

  7. 2021

    A Test-of-Time Paper Award

    The Association for Computational Linguistics gives "Lexicon-Based Methods for Sentiment Analysis" its 2021 Test-of-Time Paper Award for 2011 papers, with Taboada, Brooke, Tofiloski, Voll and Stede as the winners. The award recognizes papers that have exerted significant influence on computational linguistics and natural language processing.

  8. By 2022

    From UBC to Boosted.ai

    He spends time teaching at UBC and plays a foundational role in developing its new Master of Data Science in Computational Linguistics. By 2022, he is a researcher on AI and machine learning at Boosted.ai, a Toronto-based company that applies AI tools to investing.

Career

  1. From 2017University of Melbourne
  2. Boosted.aiResearcher

Education

  1. Stanford UniversityBachelor's degree
  2. Simon Fraser UniversityMaster's degree
  3. University of TorontoPhD

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Melbourne. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Melbourne. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Melbourne. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes University of Melbourne. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Julian's Homepage cs.toronto.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Invited talk from Julian Brooke – UKP – TU Darmstadt informatik.tu-darmstadt.de. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Professor Maite Taboada and team win Test of Time Award - Department of Linguistics - Simon Fraser University sfu.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Lexicon-Based Methods for Sentiment Analysis - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Computational analysis of writing styles cs.toronto.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. A Multi-Dimensional Bayesian Approach to Lexical Style mirror.aclweb.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Julian Brooke - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Computational analysis of literature cs.toronto.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Deep-speare: A joint neural model of poetic language, meter and rhyme - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Announcement of the 2021 ACL Test-of-Time Paper Award | ACL Member Portal aclweb.org. Checked 21 October 2026.