MS in AI and Natural Language Processing
Build skills at the intersection of language and technology
Language is at the center of how people interact with technology. The MS in AI and Natural Language Processing at the University at Buffalo prepares you to analyze language as data and build systems that work with it. This interdisciplinary program combines linguistics, computer science and statistics. You will study how language is structured, how it is processed and how to model it computationally through real data and applied projects.
Develop the skills to analyze human language, build and evaluate AI models and advance technologies used in translation, information retrieval, conversational AI and more.
As artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday communication, organizations need professionals who understand both how language works and how computers process it. Natural language processing brings these fields together to develop technologies that can interpret, generate and respond to human language.
At UB, you'll learn from interdisciplinary expertise across Linguistics, Computer Science and Engineering and AI and Society. You'll gain a deeper understanding of human language while exploring how linguistic knowledge can make AI technologies more accurate, reliable and responsible.
As a graduate student, you'll benefit from:
- Interdisciplinary expertise: Learn from faculty across linguistics and computer science who bring different perspectives to language technology.
- Language-centered AI education: Understand how linguistic structure, diversity and variation influence the way AI systems process language.
- Responsible AI education: Examine how biases, errors and limitations in language data can affect AI technologies and the people who use them.
- Research connections: Explore language technology through faculty research and interdisciplinary work across departments.
- A major research university: Benefit from UB's broader AI research community and connections across disciplines.
UB: A leader in AI
At UB, you will be part of a growing AI community that connects research, technology and real-world impact. With more than 400 researchers working in AI and related fields, UB is helping shape the future of artificial intelligence through initiatives like Empire AI and a National Science Foundation-funded National AI Institute. You'll benefit from interdisciplinary expertise and a university-wide commitment to using AI responsibly to address important challenges.
Degree type: Master of Science (MS)
Field: AI and Natural Language Processing
Program length: Typically completed in two years
Format: In-person
Designation: STEM-designated
What makes this MS stand out?
Offered jointly by UB's Department of Linguistics and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, this program brings together two complementary perspectives: how people use language and how computers process it.
You'll learn to look beyond the performance of AI tools to understand how language structure, training data and linguistic diversity influence the systems we use every day. This combination helps you approach language technology challenges with both technical knowledge and a deeper understanding of human communication.
International student benefits
This STEM-designated program may allow eligible F-1 international students to apply for a 24-month extension of Optional Practical Training (OPT), providing additional opportunities to gain practical experience in the United States.
Through coursework and applied learning, you'll develop advanced skills at the intersection of linguistics, artificial intelligence and computer science.
Skills and outcomes
This program builds the technical and analytical skills needed to understand human language and apply that knowledge in computational settings.
You will learn to:
- Apply linguistic analysis to real-world computational problems.
- Build and evaluate natural language processing systems.
- Analyze large-scale language datasets using computational methods.
- Use machine learning to model and interpret human language.
- Identify errors and biases in AI language models and evaluate their impact.
You'll graduate ready to connect linguistic knowledge with computational methods and address challenges in language technology.
Learning through experience
Put your skills into practice through research, projects and opportunities that connect classroom learning with real-world applications.
Opportunities may include:
- Working with language datasets to investigate linguistic patterns.
- Participating in faculty research across linguistics and computer science.
- Exploring natural language understanding through laboratory projects.
- Applying computational methods to translation, text analysis and language modeling.
- Completing a project, thesis or capstone focused on a language technology challenge.
These experiences help you strengthen your technical skills and apply linguistic knowledge in research and professional settings.
An interdisciplinary approach to AI
This program is offered through the Department of AI and Society and the Department of Linguistics, bringing together expertise from the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. This collaboration connects technical innovation with real-world perspectives to prepare students for an AI-driven future.
The 30-credit curriculum combines linguistics, computer science and AI foundations with electives that let you explore your interests. You'll study how human language works, examine the computational methods behind language technologies and bring these areas together through a culminating experience.
Explore the foundations of human language, including how sounds, sentence structure and meaning shape communication. Study linguistic theories and methods that explain how language is organized, interpreted and used across different contexts.
Topics may include syntax, semantics, phonetics and linguistic variation.
Study the computational foundations of artificial intelligence and the methods used to process human language. Explore how computers represent linguistic information, recognize patterns and generate language.
Topics include programming, machine learning, computational linguistics and natural language processing.
Explore advanced topics that connect linguistics, artificial intelligence and computer science to your academic and career interests.
Elective areas may include:
- Deep learning and advanced machine learning
- Natural language processing and text mining
- Information retrieval
- Corpus linguistics
- Knowledge representation
- Human-computer interaction
- Computational linguistics
- Psycholinguistics
- Quantitative methods and language analysis
Bring together your knowledge of linguistics, artificial intelligence and computational methods through a culminating project, thesis or capstone experience.
Depending on your chosen path, you may investigate a language technology challenge, develop a computational solution or conduct focused research.
This culminating experience allows you to integrate concepts from across the program and demonstrate your ability to approach complex problems through both linguistic and computational perspectives.
As AI-powered language technologies become more widely used, organizations need professionals who understand how these systems work and how to improve them. The MS in AI and Natural Language Processing prepares you for opportunities in technology, research and industries that rely on language-based applications.
- Natural language processing and language engineering
- Computational linguistics
- AI and machine learning development
- Language model development and evaluation
- Data science and language analytics
- Conversational AI and virtual assistants
- Machine translation and multilingual technologies
- Information retrieval and text analysis
- Language technology research
Graduates can pursue opportunities in technology companies, AI research organizations, language technology firms and other industries that work with language data.
Alumni from UB's computational linguistics programs have worked at organizations such as Meta, Amazon and Apple. The program also provides a foundation for further graduate study and research in linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence.
Ready to combine your interest in human language with the possibilities of artificial intelligence? Build the skills to understand how language works, develop smarter technologies and help shape the future of human-computer communication.
Have questions about the MS in AI and Natural Language Processing, admissions or how the program fits your goals? We're here to help.
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering; Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering
Department of Computer Science and Engineering