H. Laurie Lawson, PhD  

I am a Language Engineer on Model Design Staff for Copilot at Microsoft. I got my PhD in Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, where I study how content and affordance utilization differ across English and Arabic on Wikipedia and in outputs generated by large language models (LLMs). My research methods include natural language processing (NLP), network analysis, surveys, and digital trace ethnography. I am co-advised by Prof. Brian Keegan and Prof. Alexandra Siegel.

I have conducted research as a graduate researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and at the University of Maryland’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS). I am also a recipient of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Wikipedia Research Fund.

Before joining CU Boulder, I earned dual bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Physics from Washington and Lee University, with a minor in Middle Eastern and South East Asian Studies focused on the Arabic language. My undergraduate research included projects in socio-physics with Prof. Irina Mazilu and sociology with Prof. Jon Eastwood.