Guwahati: Gauhati University’s professor Shikhar Kumar Sarma has brought international recognition to Assam by chairing a session at the prestigious IJCNLP–AACL 2025 conference, one of the world’s top forums in Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics.
Sarma, who is Professor and Head of the Department of Information Technology and Dean of the Faculty of Technology at Gauhati University, was invited as a Session Chair at the ACL-sponsored conference, reflecting his international standing in academic leadership and research.
IJCNLP–AACL is jointly organised under the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), the world’s leading professional body in language technology research.
ACL conferences are highly selective, and serving as a Session Chair is considered a mark of global peer recognition.
Shikhar Sarma is believed to be the first academic from Northeast India to chair a session at an ACL conference and is among only a handful of Indian academicians to be given this responsibility.
The IJCNLP–AACL 2025 conference is being hosted in India for the first time and is taking place at IIT Bombay from December 20 to 24.
The event has drawn leading researchers from across the world working in Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics.
The conference highlights India’s growing role in advanced AI and language technology research. Sarma’s selection also recognises the pioneering work being carried out at Gauhati University on AI and language technologies for Assamese and Bodo languages.