iSchools Doctoral Seminar Series 2026

The iSchools Doctoral Seminar Series is an ongoing forum in which PhD students can present and  promote their research, and receive feedback from peers and more senior scholars. It also allows them to establish partnerships and collaborations across boundaries. PhD students at all stages of their academic career are welcome to listen  or to present, regardless of location. Please contact Anika Meyer to join the events.

13:00 Malithi Alahapperuma (Department of Information Studies, University College London (UCL))

Title: Towards more useful LLM-based conversational systems for under-represented linguistic communities: A case study in Sinhala

Abstract:Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming the way people communicate and seek information. However, their capabilities remain unevenly distributed across languages, with speakers of low-resource and under-represented languages often experiencing suboptimal model performance. LLMs possess advanced language processing and inference capacity, providing a unique opportunity for under-served linguistic communities to access knowledge and skills that were hitherto…