# Jason Eisner
**Jason Eisner** is Professor of Computer Science at [Johns Hopkins University](https://www.edgepedia.org/johns-hopkins-university) and a Fellow of the [Association for Computational Linguistics](https://www.edgepedia.org/association-for-computational-linguistics), known for Dyna, a declarative language for weighted dynamic programming. He has been Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University since July 2014, with a joint appointment in Cognitive Science dating from 2003 and membership of the Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP) since 2000.[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf) He is a Fellow of the ACL.[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html)
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Current role | Professor of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, since July 2014[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf) |
| Field | Parsing, grammar induction, machine translation, computational phonology, computational morphology, and weighted finite-state methods[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html) |
| PhD | Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania, 2001, advised by Mitch Marcus[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf) |
| Signature work | Dyna, a declarative language for weighted dynamic programming (ACL 2004)[3](https://aclanthology.org/people/jason-eisner/) |
| Industry role | Partner Principal Researcher and Director of Research at Microsoft Semantic Machines, 2019–2024[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf) |
| Honors | ACL Fellow; NSF CAREER Award; best and outstanding paper awards at ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, and COLM[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html) |
| Recent direction | Control and calibration of large language models, including sequential Monte Carlo and MCMC methods (2024–2025)[4](https://lacuna.tiptreesystems.com/author/jason-eisner/aut_88f209ca97524928888ddf4e1149a9fe) |
## Education and career
Eisner earned an A.B. in [Psychology](https://www.edgepedia.org/psychology) on the Cognitive Science track at Harvard University in 1990, summa cum laude, with junior-year election to [Phi Beta Kappa](https://www.edgepedia.org/phi-beta-kappa).[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf) He then took a second undergraduate degree, a B.A./M.A. in [Mathematics](https://www.edgepedia.org/mathematics) at the University of Cambridge, completing it in 1993 with first-class honors.[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf) Between the two, he spent a year in South Africa on a Fulbright Scholarship in Creative Writing during the country's political transition.[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html)
His PhD in Computer Science, supported by an NSF fellowship, was at the University of Pennsylvania under Mitch Marcus, and was completed in 2001 with the thesis Smoothing a Probabilistic Lexicon via Syntactic Transformations.[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf) As an undergraduate he had consulted during the summers of 1989 to 1992 at AT&T Bell Labs' Artificial Intelligence Research Department in Murray Hill, New Jersey.[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf)
He was Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the [University of Rochester](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-rochester) from January 2000, with a secondary appointment in [Linguistics](https://www.edgepedia.org/linguistics), before moving to [Johns Hopkins](https://www.edgepedia.org/johns-hopkins), where he was Assistant Professor from July 2000 to June 2007 and Associate Professor from July 2007 to June 2014, before becoming Professor in July 2014.[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf) He joined the Center for Language and Speech Processing in 2000 and added the Cognitive Science joint appointment in 2003.[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf)
## Representative work
A paper at HLT/EMNLP 2005 described a first Dyna-to-C++ compiler whose output was efficient enough for real NLP research, though still several times slower than hand-crafted code.[5](https://aclanthology.org/H05-1036/) Eisner is the language's lead designer, and the associated tooling also includes the Dopp programming language parser and the Dynasty hypergraph browser.[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html) His GitHub account carries a Dyna2 compiler and REPL alongside treebank-processing scripts.[6](https://github.com/jeisner)
## Research themes
Eisner's published work spans parsing, [grammar induction](https://www.edgepedia.org/grammar-induction), machine translation, computational phonology, computational morphology, weighted finite-state methods, and conversational AI, totaling more than 175 papers plus software.[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html)
- **Optimality Theory.** His 2000 paper at the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Phonology (SIGPHON), Easy and Hard Constraint Ranking in OT: Algorithms and [Complexity](https://www.edgepedia.org/complexity), analyzed the computational difficulty of ranking constraints in the linguists' Optimality Theory framework.[3](https://aclanthology.org/people/jason-eisner/)
- **Event modeling.** The Neural Hawkes Process, presented at NIPS 2017, is a neurally self-modulating multivariate point process in which the intensities of multiple event types evolve according to a novel continuous-time LSTM, conditioning future intensities on a recurrent network's summary of past events; it achieved competitive likelihood and predictive accuracy on real and synthetic datasets, including under missing-data conditions.[7](https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2017/hash/6463c88460bd63bbe256e495c63aa40b-Abstract.html)
- **Finite-state transduction.** Neural finite-state transducers, introduced at NAACL 2019, define joint and [conditional probability distributions](https://www.edgepedia.org/conditional-probability-distribution) over pairs of strings, score paths with arbitrary functions such as recurrent networks, and compete favorably against seq2seq models while offering interpretable paths corresponding to hard monotonic alignments.[3](https://aclanthology.org/people/jason-eisner/)
## Industry roles and software
From September 2019 to December 2024, Eisner held a dual appointment with his academic job at Microsoft Corporation as Partner Principal Researcher and Director of Research at Semantic Machines, a group developing new approaches to conversational AI.[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf)
## Recent work
His recent output turns to controlling and calibrating large language models: Principled Gradient-Based MCMC for Conditional Sampling of Text (ICML 2024), Syntactic and Semantic Control of Large Language Models via Sequential Monte Carlo (ICLR 2025), and MICE for CATs: Model-Internal Confidence Estimation for Calibrating Agents with Tools (NAACL 2025).[4](https://lacuna.tiptreesystems.com/author/jason-eisner/aut_88f209ca97524928888ddf4e1149a9fe) He has been a member of Johns Hopkins' Data Science and AI Institute since 2024.[1](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf)
## Honors and recognition
Eisner is a Fellow of the Association for Computational Linguistics and received an NSF CAREER Award.[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html) His papers have won Best Paper Awards at ACL 2017, EMNLP 2019, and NAACL 2021, and Outstanding Paper Awards at ACL 2022, EMNLP 2024, and COLM 2025.[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html) He has also received three school-wide awards for excellence in teaching at Johns Hopkins, most recently in 2025.[2](https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html)
## References
1. Jason M. Eisner, Curriculum Vitae. https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/cv.pdf
2. Jason Eisner, Bio, Johns Hopkins Computer Science. https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/bio.html
3. Jason Eisner, ACL Anthology author page. https://aclanthology.org/people/jason-eisner/
4. Jason Eisner, Lacuna author page. https://lacuna.tiptreesystems.com/author/jason-eisner/aut_88f209ca97524928888ddf4e1149a9fe
5. Compiling Comp Ling: Weighted Dynamic Programming and the Dyna Language (HLT/EMNLP 2005). https://aclanthology.org/H05-1036/
6. Jason Eisner on GitHub. https://github.com/jeisner
7. The Neural Hawkes Process: A Neurally Self-Modulating Multivariate Point Process (NIPS 2017). https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2017/hash/6463c88460bd63bbe256e495c63aa40b-Abstract.html
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Technology and the built world › Engineers and computer scientists › Computer scientists and AI researchers › Natural language processing researchers*
*Initially written Sep 21, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 25, 2026; Sep 30, 2026 · Edited: Sep 25, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Sep 30, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license