, professor and associate chair, graduate studies, has been awarded the 2020 Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL).
The award recognizes an individual for extraordinary, extended service to the computational linguistics research community.
Hirst鈥檚 contributions to ACL have included 10 years serving as treasurer, managing the organization鈥檚 finances, including the finances of its conferences. 鈥淎CL's finances today are rock solid in large part thanks to Prof. Hirst's financial stewardship, and they are helping ACL weather what could have been a financially disastrous 2020,鈥 notes ACL President Hinrich Sch眉tze.
Hirst also served as book review editor of the Computational Linguistics journal from 1985 to 2014, and was elected a member of the Executive Board of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics in 2001, on which he served as chair and past chair.
Most recently, Hirst has been "instrumental鈥 in the development of ACL鈥檚 Professional Conduct Committee, which Sch眉tze highlights as 鈥渃ritical for making ACL a welcoming environment and ensuring equality and respect for everybody.鈥