RICHARDSON, Texas (March 5, 2003) - Top experts in the field of human language technology will take part in a scientific symposium next week on the campus of The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). The event, to be held March 10-11, will mark the one-year anniversary of the founding of the Human Language Technology Research Institute (HLTRI) in UTD's Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.

Human language technology incorporates a broad spectrum of disciplines working towards two closely related goals: to enable computers to interact with humans using natural language capabilities, and to serve as useful assistants to humans by providing services such as automatic text understanding and retrieval, information extraction and question answering, automatic translation and speech recognition.

The technology has many potential applications - ranging from helping government security personnel simultaneously screen and analyze millions of voice and text communications in an attempt to uncover terrorist or other criminal activities to customer support applications in many lines of business.

"UTD is delighted to host some of the world's foremost thinkers and innovators in the exciting field of human language technology," said Dr. Sanda Harabagiu, director of the HLTRI. "Among our presenters will be such luminaries as Professor George Miller of Princeton University, Professor Mary Harper of the National Science Foundation and Dr. Carol Van Ess-Dykema of the United States Department of Defense."

A host of other speakers from academia, the government and industry will address the symposium, including representatives of Dallas-based Intervoice, which recently announced the establishment of a research center at UTD aimed at furthering the ease-of-use of voice technology and the humanization of automated conversation systems.

The symposium is open to the public. A registration fee of $100 per person provides admittance to the two-day seminar and includes lunch on both days. For an additional $50 per person, a dinner on March 10 at the Renaissance Hotel in Richardson is included.

For additional information about the symposium, please visit the HLTRI web site at http://www.hlt.utdallas.edu/news.html. To register for the event, please call Julie Weekly of UTD's Department of Computer Science at 972-883-4228.

About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls more than 13,000 students. The school's freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university's Web site at http://www.utdallas.edu/.