Dr. Phillip Wolff

Dr. Wolff is a Professor of Psychology at Emory University, where he contributes to the Cognitive and Computational Science and Clinical Science concentrations. He also serves as core faculty in the Program in Linguistics and is associated with the Department of Computer Science. Dr. Wolff is recognized for his expertise in research domains, including:

  1. Language Semantics - Exploring the structure and meaning of language.

  2. Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) - Utilizing algorithms to interpret and generate human language.

  3. Digital Phenotyping of Mental Illness - Specializing in conditions such as psychosis.

  4. Digital Phenotyping of Neurodegenerative Diseases - Focusing on diseases like Alzheimer's and Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA).

  5. Causal Reasoning and Future Thinking - Investigating how people predict and reason about future events.

Dr. Wolff’s research endeavors concentrate on mining natural language data to identify biomarkers for psychosis, neurodegenerative diseases, and fundamental cognitive processes. His innovative, cross-disciplinary methodology integrates Psychology, Computer Science, and Linguistics, leading to his presentation at over ten international conferences in the past six years.

In addition to his role as the Director of the Program in Cognition and Development, Dr. Wolff has served as the Interim Chair of Linguistics at Emory University and as faculty at the 2007 Summer Institute of Linguistics. He teaches Statistics in the Psychology Department, emphasizing computational statistics and the application of machine learning and AI in biomedical and psychological research.

Dr. Wolff has also been an Associate Editor for the journal Cognitive Science and a member of four editorial boards. As a site Principal Investigator for the Accelerated Medicines Partnership in Schizophrenia (AMP® SCZ), he oversees an international project with over 42 participating sites worldwide, leading efforts in the collection and NLP analysis of language biomarkers.

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Recently Completed

Project Number: 1R21AG073744

Name of PD/PI: (Dickerson, Wolff – MPI)

Project/Proposal Start and End Date: 08/01/2021 – 10/31/2023

Title: Use of machine learning to quantify cognitive function in AD, FTD, and DLB

Grants Overview

Work in the lab focuses on machine-learning/AI analyses of two NIH-funded projects focusing on the identification of linguistic biomarkers of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) and other neurodegenerative diseases, such as AD, FTLD, LBD, and two other NIH grants focusing on deep phenotyping of clinical high-risk individuals for psychosis (AMP SCZ).

Active

Project Number: 1U01MH124639

Name of PD/PI: (Woods, Bearden, Kane-PD; Wolff-PI)

Title: ProNET: Psychosis-Risk Outcomes Network

Project/Proposal Start and End Date: 09/08/2020 – 08/31/2025

Project Number: 1U01MH124639 (supplement)

Name of PD/PI: (Woods, Bearden, Kane-PD; Wolff-PI)

Project/Proposal Start and End Date: 09/08/2021 – 05/31/2025

ProNET: Psychosis-Risk Outcomes Network (Administrative Supplement)

Project Number: R21 DC019567-01A1

Name of PD/PI: (Dickerson, Wolff – MPI)  

Project/Proposal Start and End Date: 02/04/2022 – 01/31/2024

Computational psycholinguistic analysis of speech samples in Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Frontal Temporal Dementia (FTD)

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