Team USA Earns Laurels at International Linguistics Olympiad
American students have won high honors in an international linguistics
competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. The World Champion in the individual
competition is Adam Hesterberg, a 2007 graduate of Garfield High School,
Seattle, WA.
Eight high school students from the USA competed in the Fifth International
Linguistics Olympiad in St. Petersburg, Russia from August 1 through 4,
2007. The top overall winner in the individual competition was Adam
Hesterberg, of Seattle, WA. Jeffrey Lim of Arlington, MA received top prize
for the best solution to one of the problems. One US team of four students
won the top prize in the team competition in a tie with a Russian team.
The winners of the team competition were Rebecca Jacobs of Los Angeles, CA,
Joshua Falk of Pittsburgh, PA, Michael Gottlieb of Dobbs Ferry, NY and Anna
Tchetchetkine, of San Jose, CA.
Other American team members were Rachel Zax and Ryan Musa, both of Ithaca,
NY. Rachel Zax is also the top prize winner of the US National Competition.
The US teams were coached by Dr. Dragomir Radev, of the University of
Michigan. Dr. Lori Levin of Carnegie Mellon University, and Dr. Amy Troyani
of Taylor Allderdice High School, Pittsburgh, PA, also provided leadership
for the teams.
Altogether 16 teams of 4 students each competed, representing 9 different
countries -- Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Russia, Spain, The Netherlands,
Sweden, Poland and the USA.
This is the first time that teams from the USA have competed in the
International Linguistics Olympiad.
The International Linguistics Olympiad is a yearly event originating in
Russia and Bulgaria in which secondary school students compete by solving
linguistics problems, mostly in languages they have never learned. This year
there were problems in Braille, Turkish, Tatar, Georgian, Movima (Bolivia),
Hawaiian and others. See www.ilolympiad.spb.ru/ for more information about
the International Linguistics Olympiad.
The US teams were selected from finalists of the North American
Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) that took place on March 29,
2007. More information about NACLO can be found at www.namclo.org.
Contact: Thomas E. Payne.
Co-Chair, North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad.
tpayne@uoregon.edu
541-342-6706
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