Raúl Vázquez

Postdoctoral researcher at University of Helsinki in the Language Technology group
Email: raul.vazquez@helsinki.fi

ABOUT ME


I am a posdoctoral researcher and teaching staff at the University of Helsink. I specialize in advancing natural language understanding and processing (NLU & NLP) through data-driven methodologies. My current research focuses in uncertainty modelling in neural language models, like Large Language Models (LLMs) and neural machine translation (NMT) systems.

I obtained my PhD in Computational Linguistics in 2023 under the supervision of Jörg Tiedemann and Mathias Creutz, where my research centered on representation learning using massively multilingual parallel corpora, and the development of models for multilingual and multimodal machine translation. Prior to my PhD, I earned an MSc in Mathematical Modelling from Università degli Studi dell'Aquila in 2017 and a BSc in Applied Mathematics from ITAM (Mexico's Autonomous Institute of Technology) in 2015. My research interests encompass Advanced Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Applied Mathematics.

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EDUCATION





PhD. in Language Technology

University of Helsinki

2018-2022

Supervisor: Jörg Tiedemann
co-Supervisor: Mathias Creutz
Projects: FoTran and MeMAD

Focus Areas: Natural Language Processing, Neural Machine Translation, Mathematical Modelling

M. Sc. Mathematical Engineering

Universitá degli Studi dell'Aquila

2015-2017

Scholarship award from the EU Commission.

Thesis: The Vehicle Routing Problem - An Application and Proposed Heuristics
Adviser: Claudio Arbib
co-Adviser: Stefano Smriglio

Focus Area: ODEs, PDEs, Optimization

M. Sc. Technomathematik

Hamburg Universität

2016-2017

Joint degree awarded for completing the MathMods Joint M.Sc.

Focus Areas: non-smooth Convex Optimization and Numerical Approximation methods for PDEs


B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics

Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)

2008-2015

Thesis: A Bayesian Approach to Time Series Smoothing via the Hodrick-Prescott Filter Modelling
Adviser: Enrique de Alba Guerra

Focus Areas: Statistics, Probability, Linear and non-Linear Optimization

EXPERIENCE





Researcher

University of Helsinki

2018-2023

Development of models for natural language understanding (NLU) with a data-driven approach that incorporates massively multilingual parallel corpora and the use of diverse input signals.



Project Coordinator and Research Assistant

INEGI - Mexico's Official Statistics Bureau

2014-2015

I assisted the Institute’s vice-president of Economical Information, Enrique de Alba Guerra. Duties involved statistical analysis of time series and results visualization, as well as application and implementation of research articles.

Data Science Lab Collaborator

Sedesol - Secretatiat of Social Development

2017-2018

Directly involved in the development of a monitor of agricultural production via remote-sensing data as part of a hunger early-warning system for the Mexican government.




Logistics Coordinator Volunteer

TECHO | Mexico

2012

I collaborated with the planning and implementation of a project for the detection of irregular settlements, and the establishment of a first contact between said settlements and the NGO.

Research Collaboration

LFondry and Universitá degli Studi dell'Aquila

2017

Development of an optimization model for improving LFoundry’s production line. Customization of the Vehicle Routing Problem through Gurobi and GLPK software to improve microchips pickup and delivery time.


Vehicle Inspection Intern

Volkswagen Hannover

2012

Created a graphical interface to improve the production line operation. I also prepared automated infrared signal sender and receiver for facilitating the interface usage and information extraction.