---
title: "John Lafferty · Yale University — author profile and papers"
description: "John Lafferty, Yale University: 3 papers on Elamur Research (1990–2006), h-index 70 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and who cites them in…"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-lafferty/"
---
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# John Lafferty

John Lafferty has 3 papers in our library, in 1990–2006, most of them on [Machine translation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/machine-translation/), [Syntax & grammar formalisms](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/syntax-grammar/); often with [David M. Blei](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/david-m-blei/), [Fred Jelinek](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/fred-jelinek/), [John Cocke](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-cocke/).

3 papers in our library · 1990–2006

[OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5060219657) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5929-220X) · [**h-index 70**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5060219657) · [230 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5060219657) · [45,139 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5060219657&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14

[📄 3 works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-lafferty/#papers) · [🔗 Cited 657 times in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-lafferty/cited-by/) · [13 more in our library without a page yet](#also) · [⭐ Paper Stars ranking: #698](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/7/#star-698)

The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart.

Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=John+Lafferty) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=John+Lafferty) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=John+Lafferty) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=John+Lafferty)

## Affiliations

[🎓**Yale University** New Haven · United States 2018–2026 · 23 papers*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/yale-university/) · [🎓**Carnegie Mellon University** Pittsburgh · United States 1995–2025 · 117 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/carnegie-mellon-university/) · [🎓**University of Chicago** Chicago · United States 2011–2017 · 25 papersEmployment since 2011 · Professor](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-chicago/) · [🔬**IBM Research - Thomas J. Watson Research Center** Yorktown Heights · United States 1990–1994 · 13 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/labs/ibm-research-thomas-j-watson-research-center/) · [🎓**Princeton University** Princeton · United States 2007–2018 · 4 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/princeton-university/) · [🎓**Johns Hopkins University** Baltimore · United States 2012–2020 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/johns-hopkins-university/) · [🎓**University of Pennsylvania** Philadelphia · United States 2016–2018 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-pennsylvania/) · [🏢**IBM** Armonk · United States 1992–1994 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/companies/ibm/)

From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine. 5 more institutions on single bylines are not listed.

## Fields, topics and concepts

Of its works in our library, with the number of works on each.

📚 Shelves 7 The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).[Arts and Humanities · 3 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · [Computer Science · 3 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · [Artificial Intelligence · 3 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · [Language and Linguistics · 3 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · [General Social Sciences · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/social-sciences/general-social-sciences/) · [Social Sciences · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/social-sciences/) · [Computational Theory and Mathematics · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/computational-theory-and-mathematics/)

🧭 Topics 2 Research subjects and languages the work is about.[Machine translation · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/machine-translation/) · [Syntax & grammar formalisms · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/syntax-grammar/)

💡 Concepts 5 Key ideas and methods explained on our concept pages.[Natural language processing · 3 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/concepts/natural-language-processing/) · [Topic modeling · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/concepts/topic-modeling/) · [Context-free grammar · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/concepts/context-free-grammar/) · [Language model · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/concepts/language-model/) · [N-gram · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/concepts/n-gram/)

## Works by year

### 2000s

[**2006** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-lafferty/year/2006/)

### 1990s

[**1991** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-lafferty/year/1991/) · [**1990** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-lafferty/year/1990/)

## Papers

The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library).

1. **[Dynamic Topic Models](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/blei-2006-dynamic-topic-models/)** *(2006 · 2,520 citations)* Classic topic models such as LDA treat documents as exchangeable, so they cannot show how themes in an archive change over time.
2. **[A Statistical Approach to Machine Translation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/brown-1990-statistical-approach-machine-translation/)** *(1990 · 2,074 citations)* The authors from IBM return to an old idea of Warren Weaver: machine translation can be done statistically rather than with hand-written rules.
3. **[Computation of the Probability of Initial Substring Generation by Stochastic Context-Free Grammars](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/jelinek-1991-computation-probability-initial-substring-generation/)** *(1991 · 150 citations)* Speech recognizers need a language model that predicts the next word from the words already heard. If that model is a stochastic context-free grammar (SCFG), the recognizer must know the probability that the grammar produces a sentence beginning with a given word sequence, not just the probability of a complete…

## All works

16 works of theirs in our library, the most cited first; 3 with a page here, the others link their original until we summarise them.

1. **[Dynamic Topic Models](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/blei-2006-dynamic-topic-models/) [International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/international-conference-on-machine-learning/)**David M. Blei, John D. Lafferty*2006 · 2,520 citations*
2. **[A Statistical Approach to Machine Translation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/brown-1990-statistical-approach-machine-translation/) [Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/)**Peter F. Brown, John Cocke, Stephen A. Della Pietra, et al.*1990 · 2,074 citations*
3. **[A correlated topic model of Science ↗](https://doi.org/10.1184/r1/6587330.v1) no summary yet**David M. Blei, John Lafferty*2018 · 1,088 citations*
4. **[Correlated Topic Models ↗](https://openalex.org/W2112050062) neural information processing systems · no summary yet**John Lafferty, David M. Blei*2005 · 886 citations*
5. **[Harmonic mixtures ↗](https://doi.org/10.1145/1102351.1102484) International Conference on Machine Learning · no summary yet**Xiaojin Zhu, John Lafferty*2005 · 170 citations*
6. **[Fast nonparametric matrix factorization for large-scale collaborative filtering ↗](https://doi.org/10.1145/1571941.1571979) International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) · no summary yet**Kai Yu et al.*2009 · 165 citations*
7. **[Topic Models ↗](https://doi.org/10.1201/9781420059458.ch4) Chapman & Hall/CRC data mining and knowledge discovery series · no summary yet**John Lafferty, David M. Blei*2009 · 152 citations*
8. **[Computation of the Probability of Initial Substring Generation by Stochastic Context-Free Grammars](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/jelinek-1991-computation-probability-initial-substring-generation/) [Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/)**Frederick Jelinek, John D. Lafferty*1991 · 150 citations*
9. **[Visualizing Topics with Multi-Word Expressions ↗](https://arxiv.org/abs/0907.1013) arXiv (Cornell University) · no summary yet**David M. Blei, John Lafferty*2009 · 104 citations*
10. **[Quadratic programming relaxations for metric labeling and Markov random field MAP estimation ↗](https://doi.org/10.1145/1143844.1143937) International Conference on Machine Learning · no summary yet**Pradeep Ravikumar, John Lafferty*2006 · 102 citations*
11. **[Development and Evaluation of a Broad-Coverage Probabilistic Grammar of English-Language Computer Manuals ↗](https://aclanthology.org/P92-1024/) 30th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics · no summary yet**Ezra Black, John Lafferty, Salim Roukos*1992 · 102 citations*
12. **[Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems ↗](https://openalex.org/W2914020154) no summary yet**John Lafferty et al.*2010 · 87 citations*
13. **[Topic Models ↗](https://doi.org/10.1201/9781420059458-12) Chapman & Hall/CRC eBooks · no summary yet**David M. Blei, John Lafferty*2009 · 79 citations*
14. **[Decision Tree Models Applied to the Labeling of Text with Parts-of-Speech ↗](https://aclanthology.org/H92-1023/) Speech and Natural Language: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Harriman, New York, February 23-26, 1992 · no summary yet**Ezra Black et al.*1992 · 61 citations*
15. **[Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems - Volume 1 ↗](https://openalex.org/W2912280546) no summary yet**John Lafferty et al.*2010 · 45 citations*
16. **[TagLDA: Bringing a document structure knowledge into topic models ↗](https://openalex.org/W2898986748) no summary yet**Xiaojin Zhu, David M. Blei, John Lafferty*2006 · 11 citations*

## Co-authors here

8 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first.

- [David M. Blei](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/david-m-blei/)
- [Fred Jelinek](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/fred-jelinek/)
- [John Cocke](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-cocke/)
- [Paul S. Roossin](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/paul-s-roossin/)
- [Peter F. Brown](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/peter-f-brown/)
- [Robert L. Mercer](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-l-mercer/)
- [Stephen A. Della Pietra](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/stephen-a-della-pietra/)
- [Vincent J. Della Pietra](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/vincent-j-della-pietra/)

## Venues

Where their works here were published, the most works first, with the editions of those that have a page.

- [International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/international-conference-on-machine-learning/) ×3: [ICML 2006](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/international-conference-on-machine-learning/2006/)
- [Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/) ×2: [Computational Linguistics 1991](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/1991/), [Computational Linguistics 1990](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/1990/)
- 30th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
- Chapman & Hall/CRC data mining and knowledge discovery series
- Chapman & Hall/CRC eBooks
- International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR)
- Speech and Natural Language: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Harriman, New York, February 23-26, 1992
- neural information processing systems

## Cited by

Papers of our library cite their works 657 times (of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read); [76 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-lafferty/cited-by/).

Updated 30 October 2026