Ms Cecilia Domingo Merino

Dr Cecilia Domingo is a researcher collaborating with the School of Computing and Communications, specialising in Natural Language Processing, Computational Lingusitics, and Educational Technology. She completed her PhD at The Open University with a thesis titled "Automated Processing of Referring Acts in Pair-Programming Dialogue", where she collected a dataset of OU students' interactions while pair programming and analysed how Large Language Models process this type of language data.

Cecilia started her career in languages in 2011 through a BA in Translation and Interpreting at the University of Salamanca. She was then offered to study an MA in Teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages at West Virginia University. There, she taught undergraduate Spanish, which sparked her interest in education. This also motivated her to complete a Certificate in University Teaching. After discovering the fascinating field of Language technologies through an itnernship at the European Parliament, she decided to pursue a career in this field and return to academia. Before joining the OU, in 2021 she completed an MSc at the University of the Basque Country, where she developed her interest in educational technology and wrote a thesis titled First Steps towards an Argumentative Dialogue System for Oracy Skills Development in Schools.

Research interests

Cecilia's research falls within the broad field of Natural Language Processing, where Large Language Models are now a crucial topic, though her work in the field started with simple rule-based systems. Within this broad field, Cecilia's main motivation is using technology for positive social impact, which is why she is particularly interested in educational applications.

As a linguist, she is primarily interested in language in use and its links to social identity. This has led her to work with a focus on dialogue. In this area, her main contribution is a richly annotated dataset of student dialogues, available in ORDO.

Having completed a PhD thesis in Natural Language processing during the advent of ChatGPT, she is also very interested in sharing her knowledge in this area and helping the broader public understand this technology. One opportunity where she was able to reach a wide audience was the introduction to the Royal Institution's Christmas lectures.