9354959 Cole This proposal requests support for five graduate fellowships to support multi-disciplinary education and research in the area of spoken language interfaces. The proposed program is structurally innovative in that it combines the disciplines of human-computer interaction and cognitive science to develop computer systems that interact with humans via spoken language. The proposed program addresses national research needs as identified by the NSF. OGI's Center for Spoken Language Understanding has created the first academic program in the U.S. designed specifically to provide students with the background and research skills needed to develop spoken language systems. Innovative inter-institutional components of the proposed program include: (1) partnerships with the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and Clark Atlanta University (CAU), whose undergraduate populations are predominantly composed of students from under- represented minorities; (2) outreach and recruitment efforts through the partner institutions to interest and involve students in advanced study in spoken language interfaces; and (3) multi- level team-based support of the trainees in OGI's program. ***
