MS in AI and Natural Language Processing

This program focuses on how language analysis connects to computation and real-world systems.

At UB, you will:

• Work across linguistics and computer science to understand language as both structure and data 
• Build skills in programming, machine learning and language modeling 
• Analyze large language datasets and develop computational solutions 
• Apply linguistic knowledge to real problems in language technology 
• Prepare for roles in AI, natural language processing and related fields 

This program is designed for students who want to apply linguistic analysis in computational and data-driven environments.

The MS in AI and Natural Language Processing is a joint program with the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. You will gain expertise in both the structure of human language and the ways machine learning models process it. This combination equips you to better identify problems in training data, develop and curate high-quality language resources, and interpret and improve evaluation methods. By combining expertise in human language with modern AI techniques, you will learn how to identify biases and errors in training data, and more critically evaluate and improve models. These skills are essential for:

• Building and evaluating models for language processing 
• Working with tasks such as text analysis, information retrieval and language generation 
• Studying how better annotation improves computational systems 
• Applying machine learning methods to language data 

The focus is not just on using tools, but on understanding how language structure and computation interact.

The MS in AI and Natural Language Processing is a structured, interdisciplinary program with a strong technical focus.

• Format: In person 
• Time to degree: Typically 2 years 
• STEM designated: eligible for STEM OPT extension (CIP number 30.1801)

Coursework combines linguistics, computer science and data-focused methods. All students complete a culminating project involving programming and applied research.

Coursework connects core areas of linguistics with computational methods.

You will study:

• Syntax and semantics for modeling language structure 
• Phonetics and linguistic representation 
• Natural language processing and text mining 
• Machine learning and information retrieval 
• Data analysis and computational methods 

Electives allow you to specialize in areas such as deep learning, corpus linguistics or knowledge representation.

Graduates move into roles that work directly with language and data.

Recent roles include:

• NLP data scientist 
• AI scientist working on language models 
• Language engineer 
• Computational linguist 
• Prompt engineering and language technology roles 

Alumni have worked at organizations such as Meta, Amazon, Apple and companies developing conversational AI and language technologies.

If you are interested in working with language as data and building systems that use it, the MS in AI and Natural Language Processing at UB offers a focused and practical path forward.