{"id":931077,"date":"2023-03-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?p=931077"},"modified":"2023-03-28T09:40:12","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T16:40:12","slug":"research-focus-week-of-march-27-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/research-focus-week-of-march-27-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Focus: Week of March 27, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"193\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_banner_1400x264-1024x193.png\" alt=\"Microsoft Research Focus 12 edition, week of March 27, 2023\" class=\"wp-image-931089\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_banner_1400x264-1024x193.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_banner_1400x264-300x57.png 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_banner_1400x264-768x145.png 768w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_banner_1400x264-240x45.png 240w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_banner_1400x264.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p><em class=\"\">Welcome to Research Focus, a series of blog posts that highlights notable publications, events, code\/datasets, new hires and other milestones from across the research community at Microsoft.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n<aside id=accordion-6b23a6eb-d665-421a-b954-273e8e0508cb class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block accordion mb-5 pb-0\" data-bi-aN=\"table-of-contents\">\n\t<button class=\"btn btn-collapse bg-gray-100 mb-0 display-flex justify-content-between\" type=\"button\" data-mount=\"collapse\" data-target=\"#accordion-collapse-6b23a6eb-d665-421a-b954-273e8e0508cb\" aria-expanded=\"true\" aria-controls=\"accordion-collapse-6b23a6eb-d665-421a-b954-273e8e0508cb\">\n\t\t<span class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__label subtitle\">In this article<\/span>\n\t\t<span class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__current mr-4 text-gray-600 font-weight-normal\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span>\n\t<\/button>\n\t<div id=\"accordion-collapse-6b23a6eb-d665-421a-b954-273e8e0508cb\" class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__collapse-wrapper collapse show\" data-parent=\"#accordion-6b23a6eb-d665-421a-b954-273e8e0508cb\">\n\t\t<div class=\"accordion-body bg-gray-100 border-top pt-4\">\n\t\t\t<ol class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#bings-gendered-translations-tackle-bias-in-machine-translation\" class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item-link\">Bing's gendered translations tackle bias in machine translation<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#microsoft-researcher-honored-by-women-in-ai-netherlands\" class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item-link\">Microsoft researcher honored by Women in AI Netherlands<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#recognizing-women-in-technology\" class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__list-item-link\">Recognizing women in technology<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<span class=\"msr-table-of-contents-block__progress-bar\"><\/span>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<h6 id=\"news\" class=\"has-blue-color has-text-color\">NEWS<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"bings-gendered-translations-tackle-bias-in-machine-translation\">Bing&#8217;s gendered translations tackle bias in machine translation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Machine translation (MT) models are designed to learn from large amounts of data collected from real-world sources. However, this training data may contain implicit biases which may be amplified by the model. One such example is the expression of gender, which can vary widely across different languages. In English, the word &#8220;lawyer&#8221; can refer to either a male or female individual, whereas in Spanish, &#8220;abogada&#8221; and &#8220;abogado&#8221; are used to refer to a female and male lawyer, respectively. As a result, MT models often assign arbitrary genders to animate entities in the translated output, even when the source text does not imply a specific gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Microsoft Translator team has released a feature on Bing Translator which will provide feminine and masculine translations for sentences that have gender neutral words such as \u201cdoctor\u201d or \u201cteacher\u201d when translating from English to Spanish, French and Italian. Additionally, to support ongoing research and track progress towards reducing gender bias in MT, the team has published a technical paper outlining their evaluation methodology and test sets. These test sets comprise a linguistically diverse corpus of gender-ambiguous source sentences, along with multiple alternative target language translations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-1 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-fill\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/translator\/blog\/2023\/03\/08\/bings-gendered-translations-tackle-bias-in-translation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read the blog<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-fill-github\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/MicrosoftTranslator\/GATE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Download the data<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--6c5b872ac27225d8bb4112a4aa945418\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/gate-a-challenge-set-for-gender-ambiguous-translation-examples\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read the paper<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h6 id=\"award\" class=\"has-blue-color has-text-color\">AWARD<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"microsoft-researcher-honored-by-women-in-ai-netherlands\">Microsoft researcher honored by Women in AI Netherlands<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Rianne van den Berg, a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Amsterdam, has won the <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/equals.nl\/rianne\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">AI Researcher<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> award from Women in AI Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rianne was recognized for her work in deep learning and physics. The award announcement noted her published work in journals such as Nature Physics and Physical Review Letters as well as at prominent AI conferences, such as NeurIPS, ICML and ICLR. The organization also cited Rianne\u2019s dedication to diversity and inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/rvandenberg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">role on the AI4Science team<\/a> at Microsoft Research, Rianne&#8217;s research focuses on the intersection between computational chemistry and deep learning, with an emphasis on modeling chemical reactions. Her prior research has spanned topics ranging from generative modeling and variational inference to source compression, graph-structured learning, and condensed-matter physics. She received her PhD in theoretical condensed-matter physics in 2016 at the University of Amsterdam, where she also worked as a postdoctoral researcher as part of the Amsterdam Machine Learning Lab (AMLAB).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-2 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rianne-van-den-berg-629a9238\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rianne on LinkedIn<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--52008b0191323b4bbe05144a62a22072\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/rvandenberg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rianne at Microsoft Research<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n\t<div class=\"border-bottom border-top border-gray-300 mt-5 mb-5 msr-promo text-center text-md-left alignwide\" data-bi-aN=\"promo\" data-bi-id=\"999693\">\n\t\t\n\n\t\t<p class=\"msr-promo__label text-gray-800 text-center text-uppercase\">\n\t\t<span class=\"px-4 bg-white display-inline-block font-weight-semibold small\">Spotlight: Event Series<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n\t\n\t<div class=\"row pt-3 pb-4 align-items-center\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"msr-promo__media col-12 col-md-5\">\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"bg-gray-300\" href=\"https:\/\/researchforum.microsoft.com\/?OCID=msr_researchforum_MCR_Blog_Promo\" aria-label=\"Microsoft Research Forum\" data-bi-cN=\"Microsoft Research Forum\" target=\"_blank\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"w-100 display-block\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2024\/01\/MRF-24_WebImage_1400x788.png\" alt=\"various abstract 3D shapes on a light blue background\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"msr-promo__content p-3 px-5 col-12 col-md\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"h4\">Microsoft Research Forum<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"large\">Join us for a continuous exchange of ideas about research in the era of general AI. Watch the first four episodes on demand.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-buttons justify-content-center justify-content-md-start\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-button\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/researchforum.microsoft.com\/?OCID=msr_researchforum_MCR_Blog_Promo\" class=\"btn btn-brand glyph-append glyph-append-chevron-right\" aria-label=\"Register for series\" data-bi-cN=\"Microsoft Research Forum\" target=\"_blank\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRegister for series\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><!--\/.msr-promo__content-->\n\t<\/div><!--\/.msr-promo__inner-wrap-->\n\t<\/div><!--\/.msr-promo-->\n\t\n\n\n<h6 id=\"interview\" class=\"has-blue-color has-text-color\">INTERVIEW<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"recognizing-women-in-technology\">Recognizing women in technology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Why are women underrepresented in STEM and AI and how can we close that gap? How is technology shaping society, from gender issues to creativity and collaboration?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft Research Principal Researcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/people\/chezha\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cheng Zhang<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> sat down to discuss these issues and more with the <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/ukcwc.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">UK Chinese Women Connect Association<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, which recently recognized her as the <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/ukcwc.org\/annual-awards-winner\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Highly Commended<span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> awardee in the Chinese Women of the Year: Technology category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the interview, Cheng talks about her career in technology research and why she came to Microsoft Research Cambridge, where she works with the Machine Intelligence group. The conversation covers the impact of AI, strategies for making an impact\u2014especially at a very large company\u2014and the value of learning from others. Catch a video replay of this fascinating interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-3 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/uk-chinese-women-connect_womenintech-diversityandinclusion-ukchinesewomenconnect-activity-7041695167027761152-SMfP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Video: Part 1<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--b893cdf5393c458c54c5866663930a7e\"><a data-bi-type=\"button\" class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/uk-chinese-women-connect_womenintech-diversityandinclusion-ukchinesewomenconnect-activity-7041723134084808704-8Z63\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Video: Part 2<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to Research Focus, a series of blog posts that highlights notable publications, events, code\/datasets, new hires and other milestones from across the research community at Microsoft. Machine translation (MT) models are designed to learn from large amounts of data collected from real-world sources. However, this training data may contain implicit biases which may be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42183,"featured_media":931086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"research-area":[13545],"msr-region":[],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[243984],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-931077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-blog","msr-research-area-human-language-technologies","msr-locale-en_us","msr-post-option-blog-homepage-featured"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[470706],"related-projects":[587692],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[],"msr_type":"Post","featured_image_thumbnail":"<img width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-960x540.png\" class=\"img-object-cover\" alt=\"Microsoft Research Focus 12 edition, week of March 27, 2023\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-960x540.png 960w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-1024x576.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-1066x600.png 1066w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-655x368.png 655w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-343x193.png 343w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-240x135.png 240w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-640x360.png 640w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788-1280x720.png 1280w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2023\/03\/RF12_blog_hero_1400x788.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/>","byline":"","formattedDate":"March 29, 2023","formattedExcerpt":"Welcome to Research Focus, a series of blog posts that highlights notable publications, events, code\/datasets, new hires and other milestones from across the research community at Microsoft. Machine translation (MT) models are designed to learn from large amounts of data collected from real-world sources. However,&hellip;","locale":{"slug":"en_us","name":"English","native":"","english":"English"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931077"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":933627,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931077\/revisions\/933627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"msr-promo-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-promo-type?post=931077"},{"taxonomy":"msr-podcast-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-podcast-series?post=931077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}