Kathleen R. McKeown
Kathleen McKeown studies how computers generate language, summarize information, and answer questions across languages and media. McKeown received a computer science doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 and joined Columbia that year. Her research interests include summarization, natural language generation, and question answering. McKeown served as Columbia’s computer science department chair from 1998 to 2003. This was one part of her academic career alongside language technology research.
- Now at
- Columbia University
- Works
- 455
- Citations
- 18,985
- h-index
- 67
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.
Timeline
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1982
Joining Columbia
McKeown received a computer science doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 and joined Columbia that year. Her research interests include summarization, natural language generation, and question answering.
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1994
Research recognition
AAAI elected Kathleen R. McKeown as a Fellow in 1994.
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1998–2003
Department leadership
McKeown served as Columbia’s computer science department chair from 1998 to 2003. This was one part of her academic career alongside language technology research.
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2012–2017
Founding Data Science Institute director
McKeown served as the founding director of Columbia’s Data Science Institute from July 2012 through June 2017.
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As of October 2026
Summaries and language generation
Her group studies neural extractive and abstractive summarization and the generation of disaster updates from streaming information.
Sources and credits
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