Sophomore Lily Hegener is changing the Latin world through her research at the Institute of the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University with
On Lily’s spreadsheet she tracks the words within the translations she is conducting. Using these words, she inputs them into Latency, an AI Latin chatbot, to train the bot to recognize these words.
professors David Ratzan and Patrick J. Burns. Lily is currently conducting her research virtually and periodically meets with her advisors, Ratzan and Burns, through Zoom. Her research project, titled “Representing Woman Authorship in the Latin Treebanks,” is composed of three sections.
The first section is composed of translating literature of women authors from the 15th and 16th centuries, including Luisa Sigea and Proba.
After translating these lesser-known texts, Lily then inputs these translations into LatinCy, a Latin AI chatbot that analyzes the syntax of Latin texts, which is the second component of her research. When Lily first started, the accuracy of LatinCy was at 95%; however, Lily found an issue with the bot’s processing of the participle root, a verb that acts like an adverb. By fixing the analysis of the syntax, the accuracy of LatinCy’s analysis increased.
The third and final section of the research is collecting metadata (information) on women authors of Latin literature. Lily is collecting information regarding the births, deaths, and places of residence of over one hundred women authors. This is to better improve the knowledge of these authors and their works.
Lily, who has been studying Latin since sixth grade and is currently in the Advanced Placement (AP) Latin course, says that the internship has been a great experience to utilize what she has learned within her studies of Latin and has deepened her understanding of Latin.
“I definitely think that this has been such a great experience so far, and I think that it is so cool that I get to test out the ropes for future students who will also participate in this internship,” Lily said. Originally, Lily was the
Lily has a spreadsheet containing the names of various woman authors in Latin literature. Here, Lily stores information regarding their birth and death dates, and places of residence in hopes to update and find information of these authors.
only student participating in this internship, but starting this spring semester, two other students are joining her.
“My favorite part of this internship is the contributions I have made to the Latin world and continue to make, as well as how much it will help the efficiency of translations in the future, in addition to bringing to light these many women authors,” said Lily.
