PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Martha Evens

Martha Evens is a computer scientist whose AI career spans natural-language processing, expert systems, and intelligent tutoring. She graduated in mathematics from Bryn Mawr, worked on an early spelling-correction program at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and joined Illinois Tech's computer-science faculty in 1975 after a Northwestern doctorate. Her work included a stroke diagnosis system and CIRCSIM-Tutor, a dialogue tutor for medical students, and she served as president of the Association for Computational Linguistics in 1984. The ACL awarded her its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022. As of October 2026, she is professor emerita of computer science at Illinois Tech.

Now at
Illinois Institute of Technology
Works
252
Citations
2,653
h-index
25

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.

Photo of Martha Evens

Timeline

  1. 1955

    A mathematics degree at Bryn Mawr

    She graduates summa from Bryn Mawr with a mathematics major in 1955.

  2. Late 1950s

    Spell correction at Lincoln Laboratory

    At MIT Lincoln Laboratory, she works on the first spelling-correction program in the late 1950s.

  3. 1975

    Joining IIT's computer science faculty

    She earns a Ph.D. in computer science at Northwestern and joins Illinois Tech's computer-science faculty in 1975, where she teaches compiler courses, information retrieval, and natural-language processing.

  4. 1983

    An expert system for stroke care

    In 1983, she and Ph.D. student Howard Hill work with neurologist Daniel Hier to develop an expert system that helps emergency physicians diagnose and treat stroke.

  5. 1984

    Editor and ACL president

    She serves as an associate editor of Computational Linguistics from 1981 to 1984 and as ACL president in 1984.

  6. 2006

    A dialogue tutor for medical students

    With Joel Michael, she publishes One-on-One Tutoring by Humans and Computers about CIRCSIM-Tutor in 2006. The language-based system guides first-year medical students through blood-pressure problems in Socratic dialogue.

  7. 2022

    An ACL lifetime achievement award

    She receives the ACL Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022 for work in lexical databases and intelligent tutoring systems.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor emerita at Illinois Tech

    As of October 2026, she is a professor emerita of computer science at Illinois Tech.

Sources and credits

Photo: iit.edu; Martha Evens | Illinois Institute of Technology; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: iit.edu. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.

  1. History | Computer Science | Bryn Mawr College brynmawr.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. History of the Dept. of Computer Science, IIT info.cs.iit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. Professor Emerita Martha Evens Receives Lifetime Achievement Award for work in Computational Linguistics iit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. CIRCSIM-Tutor Intelligent Tutoring System Project at Illinois Institute of Technology and Rush College of Medicine cs.iit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. Martha Evens Receives the 2022 ACL Lifetime Achievement Award | ACL Member Portal aclweb.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. Martha Evens | Illinois Institute of Technology iit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.