Building Reliable and Inclusive NLP Resources for Low Resource African languages.

Title: Building Reliable and Inclusive NLP Resources for Low-Resource African Languages

I am an AI/NLP researcher and lecturer from Nigeria interested in developing robust language technologies for low-resource African languages, with a particular focus on Hausa.

My research interest is centred on addressing the lack of high-quality datasets, language resources, and reliable evaluation frameworks for African languages. I am particularly interested in exploring how multilingual foundation models, dataset curation, efficient adaptation, and responsible AI methods can be used to develop NLP systems that are culturally and linguistically appropriate for underrepresented languages.

I am interested in developing this research direction into a PhD project within an international research environment, particularly through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions opportunity. I am open to interdisciplinary projects involving NLP, machine learning, computational linguistics, digital humanities, language documentation, and responsible AI.

I bring experience in NLP research, dataset development and curation, machine-learning experimentation, model evaluation, and research on Hausa and other African language technologies. I am also interested in contributing to open and reproducible research by developing datasets, benchmarks, models, and research tools that can be reused by the wider research community.

I would particularly welcome connections with researchers, supervisors, research groups, and institutions interested in low-resource NLP, African language technologies, multilingual AI, or related areas, and who may be interested in developing a joint MSCA/PhD research proposal.