Edward Ajayi

Edward Ajayi

Machine Learning Engineer / NLP Research Associate

Spatial & Language Technologies Lab • Carnegie Mellon University

MSc in Engineering Artificial Intelligence, CMU '26

Computational Humor LLM Evaluation Multimodal ML Socially Aware AI

About

I am a Research Associate at the Spatial and Language Technologies Lab, Carnegie Mellon University. I investigate how structured representations and reasoning processes can be incorporated into neural language models for computational humor generation, LLM evaluation, and multimodal ML. My work focuses on how models capture and manipulate meaning, particularly in settings that require compositionality, contextual interpretation, and nuanced semantic shifts. More broadly, I am interested in developing cognitively grounded approaches to machine intelligence that improve interpretability, generalization, and alignment with human reasoning.

Recent Publications

E. Ajayi, M. Kachweka, M. Deku, and E. Aiken
AAAI AI in Medicine and Healthcare Bridge 2026 (Oral)
E. Ajayi and P. Mitra
Submitted to ACM Computing Surveys
E. Ajayi, B. Tadele, E. Umwari, M. Deku, P. Singadi, C. Edeh, and J. Udahemuka
Submitted to Deep Learning Indaba 2026

Selected Projects

Recent Highlights

Research & Engineering Role

Started as a NLP Research Associate at the Spatial and Language Technologies Lab at Carnegie Mellon University (June 2026).

CMU-Africa NLP Talk

Gave a talk with the CMU-Africa NLP Group on "Beyond the Transformer: How Modern NLP Research actually uses Foundation Models" (May 2026).

Best Paper Award

Mental health & cyberbullying detection paper received Best Paper Award at AAAI AIMedHealth Bridge 2026.

Seeking PhD Opportunities (Fall 2026)

Research Focus: Socially Aware AI • Grounded & Multimodal Reasoning • Human-AI Interaction

I'm applying to PhD programs to advance research in socially intelligent AI that communicates with social awareness, reasons across modalities, and generalizes beyond linguistic boundaries—moving toward AI systems that think and collaborate more like humans.