Maria Tzevelekou

Maria Tsevelekou is a linguist, Research Director at the Institute for Language and Speech Processing (ILSP), and a member of the Advisory Scientific Council. She was born in Palaio Faliro. She completed her undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral studies in theoretical linguistics in Paris (Université de Paris VII and VIII): - Licence in General Linguistics, University of Paris VII, 1977. - Maitrise in Theoretical Linguistics, University of Paris VIII. Dissertation titled "Structuralism and Phenomenology: The Traces of Phenomenology in Jakobson's Linguistic Theory," 1979. - Diplôme d'Études Approfondies in Formal Linguistics (DEA), University of Paris VII, with a focus on "Aspect in Modern Greek," 1981. - Doctoral Thesis in Theoretical and Formal Linguistics, University of Paris VII, on "Lexical Categorization and Aspect: The Aspectual System of Modern Greek," 1995. She participated in educational programs for language teaching, most notably the reform program for upgrading education in minority schools in Thrace (Program "Education of Muslim Children" 1996-2007). Within the framework of this program, she served as the scientific coordinator for developing the curriculum for teaching Greek as a second language and for designing and implementing educational books and software: - "A Knight in the Castle of Letters" and "A Knight in the Castle of Words." A Greek learning method for elementary school children, based on texts by Eugene Trivizas (software and books). - Greek-Turkish dictionary with 6000 entries (software and book). - Basic Greek Grammar (book). - Trilingual Terminological Dictionary with 6000 entries for middle school children (software). - "Akousma": online software for understanding spoken language. As part of the program, she also directed a large-scale research project to determine the levels of Greek language proficiency in minority elementary schools in Thrace. During 2002-2003, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Program in Hellenic Studies, Princeton University. From 1995-2002, she taught undergraduate linguistics courses at the Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Athens. From 1998-2001, she taught courses in Formal and Computational Linguistics and Formal Semantics in the postgraduate program "The Science of Translation" at the Department of Foreign Languages, Translation, and Interpreting, Ionian University. During the same period, she also taught formal semantics in the postgraduate program "Technoglossia" (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Athens & National Technical University of Athens).