Dr. Mark A. Finlayson is Associate Professor of Computer Science and Associate Director of Research & Academic Affairs in the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences (KFSCIS) at Florida International University (FIU).  His research interests include natural language processing, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computational linguistics, and the digital humanities. He directs the Cognac Laboratory whose members focus on advancing the science of narrative, including: understanding the relationship between cognition, narrative, and culture; developing new methods and techniques for investigating questions related to language and narrative; and endowing machines with the ability to understand and use narratives for a variety of applications. He received his Ph.D. from MIT in computer science in 2012 under the supervision of Patrick H. Winston. He also holds the M.S. in Electrical Engineering from MIT (2001) and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1998). Dr. Finlayson served as a research scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory for 2½ years before coming to FIU as an assistant professor in 2014. Dr. Finlayson is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award (2018), an IBM Faculty Award (2019), a DARPA Young Faculty Award (2021), and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2025). He has also served as the Edison Fellow for AI at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from 2019–2024. Dr. Finlayson received FIU’s university-wide Faculty Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activities (2019), a university-wide Top Scholar Award for Teaching and Mentoring (2018), and departmental awards for Excellence in Service (2016), Teaching (2018), Fundamental Research (2019), and Mentoring (2021). His work has been funded by NSF, NIH, ONR, DARPA, DHS, DOT, MITRE, and IBM.