Published: 25th June 2024
MINDS CDT researcher Rudra Mutalik was part of a team that took first place in the shared task at the 9th Workshop on Computational Linguistics and Clinical Psychology (CLPsych 2024), held as part of the 18th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL 2024) in Malta in March 2024.
The shared task challenged teams to develop systems that could identify indicators of risk in online text, a problem with direct relevance to mental health support and early intervention. Rudra's team, which included Dr Gyanendro Loitongbam, Junyu Mao and collaborators from the University of Southampton, produced the highest-scoring submission across the task.
The result is a strong example of MINDS research crossing disciplinary boundaries. Rudra's doctoral work focuses on how large language models learn and retain information over time, and the CLPsych task gave that research a direct application in a field where the accuracy and reliability of AI systems carries real human weight.
CLPsych is one of the leading venues for research at the intersection of natural language processing and mental health, drawing researchers from computer science, psychology and clinical practice. Competing at EACL, one of the most competitive computational linguistics conferences in Europe, and finishing first is a significant achievement for a doctoral researcher.
Rudra's participation reflects both the quality of research being produced within the MINDS programme and the CDT's encouragement of researchers to engage with the wider community around their work.