The vision for Alexa: Be everywhere, available on many devices and in many scenarios at home, work and on the go.

The work of Leah and her natural language understanding (NLU) team in Pittsburgh relates to the on-the-go challenge – the role for Alexa in the car. This environment presents Leah and team a number of interesting machine-learning challenges to address.

For several years, Leah has been interested in applying technology to language, and using language to do interesting things with technology. She joined the Alexa team in the fall of 2016 because “Alexa is the most exciting product in the field right now. I worked on much smaller academic projects. But Alexa’s dialog system is actually being used by millions of people every day; she’s playing a meaningful role in people’s lives. That’s what attracted me to Amazon here in Pittsburgh.”

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Leah enjoys the linguistics challenges she and her team must confront, and Pittsburgh itself, a city she describes as “up and coming” with a “really good arts scene.”  Amazon is looking to grow the team significantly in Pittsburgh: “We’re looking for scientists and engineers with an interest in language and in solving hard and ambiguous machine-learning problems.”

Leah earned her master’s degree in Language Technology from nearby Carnegie Mellon University and her bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from Dartmouth College where, among other things, she learned to ski.

When Leah isn’t focused on developing Alexa for on-the-go use, she enjoys bicycling, gardening, reading and listening to music.  Her music interest aligns with her favorite Alexa feature – the ability to request a song by reciting some lyrics.