Details of the Researcher

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Nehrdich Sebastian
Section
Organization for International Initiatives
Job title
Assistant Professor
Degree

  • Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (University of Duesseldorf))

e-Rad No.
11034744
Profile

I am an Assistant Professor working on Natural Language Processing and Digital Humanities at the Center for Integrated Japanese Studies, Tohoku University. My interests are machine learning and natural language processing with special focus on Asian low-resource languages as well as the intersection between Buddhist Studies and NLP applications. In 2025, I completed my PhD in computational linguistics at University of Duesseldorf, under the guidance of Oliver Hellwig and Kurt Keutzer. I have completed a bachelor's degree in Indology and Sinology (2017) and a master's degree in Buddhist Studies (2020) at University of Hamburg.

Since 2023, I am part of the Dharmamitra project, first as CTO and now as director in collaboration with co-founder Kurt Keutzer at Berkeley AI Research Lab (BAIR), UC Berkeley. In this project, we develop machine translation models as well as semantic search functionality, parallel passage detection, and OCR for Classical Asian languages.

Since 2018, I am working on the NLP technology and database system of the BuddhaNexus platform for the research of intertextual links within Buddhist sources, which is now continued as DharmaNexus.

 

Research History 3

  • 2025/10 - Present
    Tohoku University　Center for Integrated Japanese Studies　Assistant Professor

  • 2023/04 - 2025/09
    University of California, Berkeley　Berkeley AI Research Lab　Researcher

  • 2021/03 - 2023/03
    Heinrich-Heine University, Duesseldorf　Institut fuer Linguistik　Researcher

Education 3

  • University of Duesseldorf (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)　Computational Linguistics　PhD

    2020 - 2025

  • University of Hamburg　Buddhist Studies　Master of Arts (MA)

    2017 - 2020

  • University of Hamburg　Indology (major), Sinology (minor)　Bachelor of Arts (BA)

    2012 - 2017

Research Interests 9

  • Pāli

  • Japanese NLP

  • Machine Translation

  • Informational Retrieval

  • Sanskrit

  • Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

  • Classical Chinese

  • Tibetan

  • Natural Language Processing

Research Areas 4

  • Humanities & social sciences / Linguistics / Computational Linguistics, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Classical Chinese

  • Humanities & social sciences / Philosophy - Chinese, Indian, Buddhist / Buddhist Studies, Indology, Yogācāra, Abhidharma

  • Humanities & social sciences / Library/information science, humanistic/social informatics / Digital Humanities, Intertextuality, Text Reuse Detection

  • Informatics / Intelligent informatics / Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Large Language Models

Awards 3

  1. Best Dissertation of the Year 2025 (Beste Dissertation des Jahres 2025)

    2025　Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Düsseldorf　Development of a Computational Framework for the Intertextual Analysis of Indian Abhidharma and Yogācāra Literature

  2. Khyentse Foundation Award for Excellence in Buddhist Studies

    2020　Khyentse Foundation and the Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, Universität Hamburg

  3. Scholarship for bachelor and master degree (2015–2020)

    2015　German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)

Papers 12

  1. Sanskrit Word Sense Disambiguation Based on Lexicographic Definitions Peer-reviewed

    Oliver Hellwig, Sven Sellmer, Sebastian Nehrdich, Paul Widmer, Rico Sennrich

    Proceedings of the 8th International Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Symposium　2026

  2. MITRA-zh-eval: Using a Buddhist Chinese Language Evaluation Dataset to Assess Machine Translation and Evaluation Metrics Peer-reviewed

    Sebastian Nehrdich, Avery Chen, Marcus Bingenheimer, Lu Huang, Rouying Tang, Xiang Wei, Leijie Zhu, Kurt Keutzer

    Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Natural Language Processing for Digital Humanities　129-137　2025

  3. Breakthroughs in Tibetan NLP & Digital Humanities Peer-reviewed

    Marieke Meelen, Sebastian Nehrdich, Kurt Keutzer

    Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines　72　5-25　2024

  4. One Model is All You Need: ByT5-Sanskrit, a Unified Model for Sanskrit NLP Tasks Peer-reviewed

    Sebastian Nehrdich, Oliver Hellwig, Kurt Keutzer

    Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (Findings)　2024

  5. Observations on the Intertextuality of Selected Abhidharma Texts Preserved in Chinese Translation Peer-reviewed

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Religions　14　(7)　911　2023

  6. MITRA-zh: An efficient, open machine translation solution for Buddhist Chinese Peer-reviewed

    Sebastian Nehrdich, Marcus Bingenheimer, Justin Brody, Kurt Keutzer

    NLP4DH　2023

  7. Data-driven dependency parsing of Vedic Sanskrit Peer-reviewed

    Oliver Hellwig, Sebastian Nehrdich, Sven Sellmer

    Language Resources and Evaluation　57　1173-1206　2023

  8. SansTib, a Sanskrit - Tibetan Parallel Corpus and Bilingual Sentence Embedding Model Peer-reviewed

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, LREC 2022　6728-6734　2022

  9. Accurate Dependency Parsing and Tagging of Latin Peer-reviewed

    Sebastian Nehrdich, Oliver Hellwig

    Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Language Technologies for Historical and Ancient Languages, LT4HALA 2022　20-25　2022

  10. Obtaining More Expressive Corpus Distributions for Standardized Ancient Languages Peer-reviewed

    Oliver Hellwig, Sven Sellmer, Sebastian Nehrdich

    Proceedings of the Conference on Computational Humanities Research, CHR2021　92-107　2021

  11. A Method for the Calculation of Parallel Passages for Buddhist Chinese Sources Based on Million-scale Nearest Neighbor Search

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Journal of the Japanese Association of the Digital Humanities　5　2020

  12. Sanskrit Word Segmentation Using Character-level Recurrent and Convolutional Neural Networks Peer-reviewed

    Oliver Hellwig, Sebastian Nehrdich

    Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing　2754-2763　2018

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Presentations 44

  1. Access as Nonviolence: Designing DH Platforms That Reduce Inequality

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Ahimṣā Lecture Series, Asia-Africa Institute, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany　2026/05

  2. Artificial Intelligence in Buddhist Studies Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Workshop in Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany　2026/05

  3. Dharmamitra in 2026: Current Capabilities and Future Developments

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Talk, Institute for Indology and Tibetology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany　2026/05

  4. Is This the End of (Buddhist) Philology as We Know It? If So, What's Next? Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands　2026/03

  5. DharmaNexus as a Multilingual Graph of Buddhist Intertextuality: Design Choices, Research Uses, and Future Applications Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Gandhāra Corpora Lecture Series, Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium　2026/03

  6. Dharmamitra: A Platform to Support Research across Language Boundaries on Buddhist Textual Material

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Workshop: Japanese Studies in Japan and Belgium, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium　2026/03

  7. OCR and Beyond: Philology and Digital Archives in the Age of AI

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Workshop, Center for Integrated Japanese Studies (CIJS), Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan　2026/03

  8. AI and Indological/Buddhological Researches: Dharmamitra/DharmaNexus and Its Application

    Sebastian Nehrdich, Kengo Harimoto

    32nd Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of the History of Indian Thought, Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan　2026/01

  9. Dharmamitra: A Data-Driven Platform for the Research of Buddhist Texts in Multiple Languages Using Advanced NLP Methods Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    30th Information and Knowledge Science Forum, Doshisha University Osaka Satellite Campus, Osaka, Japan　2026/01

  10. Building the Foundations of Buddhist Philology through Digital Humanities: Exploring the Potential of the Tohoku University Digital Archives (ToUDA)

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Workshop and Symposium, Center for Integrated Japanese Studies (CIJS), Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan　2025/12

  11. Dharmamitra: A Platform that Makes Translation and Discovery of Buddhist Texts Possible Across Language Barriers

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    11th Symposium of Humanistic Buddhism, Taiwan　2025/12

  12. Translation, OCR, and Semantic Retrieval: Current Status and Future Outlook of the Dharmamitra Ecosystem Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Buddhist Studies and Digital Humanities International Symposium, Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo, Japan　2025/12

  13. From OCR via Machine Translation to Semantic Search: The Dharmamitra AI Stack for Multilingual Buddhist Philology Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Seoul National University AI Digital Humanities Center Overseas Researcher Invitation Forum, Seoul, South Korea　2025/11

  14. Buddhist Philology and AI Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Goodman Lecture Series, Khyentse Foundation, Online　2025/10

  15. Dharmamitra & DharmaNexus: A New Set of Digital Tools for the Study of Buddhist Texts

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Workshop: Decoding Buddhist Text Wisdom, Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan　2025/09

  16. Digital Humanities and Buddhist Language Resources: New Possibilities for Reading the Classics Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Invited Talk, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan　2025/09

  17. MITRA: New Research Tools for a Paradigm Shift in the Philological Study of Buddhist Texts Based on Machine Translation Technology

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Panel: Machine Translation, Large Language Models, and Buddhist Studies, XXth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies　2025/08

  18. Dharmamitra & DharmaNexus: A New Set of Digital Tools for the Philological Study of Buddhist Texts Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Invited Talk, ELTE BTK, Budapest, Hungary　2025/08

  19. From Sthiramati to Dharmamitra: Developing Digital Tools for a New Age of Philological Buddhist Studies Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    DH International Workshop, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan　2025/06

  20. Is training deep neural embeddings worth the effort? A preliminary investigation of different representation methods for semantic similarity tasks in Buddhist Chinese and related languages

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Online Workshop: Navigating Indra's Net - Digital Approaches to Text Reuse-based Intertextuality in Pre-Modern East Asian Texts, Hanmun Lab, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany (online)　2025/06

  21. MITRASearch: Building Information Retrieval Systems for Classical Asian Languages in the Age of AI

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    CEAL Technology Forum, Council on East Asian Libraries, Columbus, Ohio, USA　2025/03

  22. Machine Translation for Asian Studies

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Workshop, Annual Conference of the Association of Asian Studies, Columbus, Ohio, USA　2025/03

  23. MITRA Search: Exploring Buddhist Literature Preserved in Classical Asian Languages with Multilingual Approximate Search Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    International Symposium: Buddhist Studies and Digital Humanities: 100 Years of the Taishō Tripiṭaka and 30 Years of SAT, University of Tokyo, Japan　2024/12

  24. Dharmamitra: New Tools for Sanskrit Translation, Grammatical Analysis, Search, and Digital Philology Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Manuscriptology and Digital Humanities Online Lecture Series, Heidelberg University and Otani University　2024/11

  25. Dharmamitra: Developing a Toolkit for Philological Work on Premodern Asian Low-Resource Languages

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Workshop: Case Studies - Conversations on Digital Scholarly Editing, Sivadharma Project, University of Naples L'Orientale, Naples, Italy　2024/11

  26. Dharmamitra Search: Leveraging Multilingual Language Models for Search and Detection of Textual Reuse across Diverse Text Collections Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Conference: AI and the Future of Buddhist Studies, Numata Center for Buddhist Studies, University of California Berkeley, USA　2024/10

  27. MITRA: Beyond Just Machine Translation for Premodern Asian Low Resource Languages Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Invited Seminar Talk, Center for Language and Speech Processing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA　2024/10

  28. MITRA: Developing Language Models for Machine Translation and Search in Buddhist Source Languages

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    PNC Annual Conference and Joint Meetings, Seoul, South Korea　2024/08

  29. Massive Multilingual Machine Translation and Search for Buddhist Languages: The MITRA Project Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    International Conference on Retrospect and Prospect of Digitalization of Buddhist Resources, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan　2024/04

  30. Dharmamitra: Enabling Massive Multilingual Machine Translation for Ancient Languages of the Buddhist Tradition Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Interdisciplinary Symposium on Machine Translation and Digital Humanities, National University of Singapore, Singapore　2024/03

  31. Machine Translation and LLM-Powered Grammatical Explanation for Sanskrit

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    International Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Conference, Auroville, India　2024/02

  32. Developing Machine Translation for Ancient Buddhist Texts in Canonical Languages Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Invited Workshop: Machine Translation and Algorithmic Study of Classical Buddhist Texts, Dongguk University, Seoul, South Korea　2023/06

  33. MITRA: Developing Natural Language Processing Tools for the Languages of Buddhist Literature Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    International Symposium: Maitreya Faith/Philosophy and Buddhist Community Service, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong　2023/06

  34. Creating a Shared Semantic Vector Space for Buddhist Languages Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Invited Talk, Symposium: Advanced Computational Methods for Studying Buddhist Texts, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria　2023/04

  35. Multilingual Semantic Mining for Text Alignment and Parallel Corpus Building for Buddhist Languages

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    International Symposium: Perspectives of Digital Humanities in the Field of Buddhist Studies, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany　2023/01

  36. ChronBMM - Dating Text Corpora Using Bayesian Mixture Models

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    International Symposium: Perspectives of Digital Humanities in the Field of Buddhist Studies, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany　2023/01

  37. The Uncertain Future of Buddhist (Machine) Translation

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    PNC Annual Conference and Joint Meetings, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA　2022/09

  38. ChronBMM: Bayesian Mixture Models für die Datierung von Textkorpora

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Deutscher Orientalistentag (DOT) 2022, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany　2022/09

  39. Current State of the BuddhaNexus, a Powerful Database for Research on Buddhist Corpora

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    16th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Prague, Czech Republic　2022/07

  40. Machine Translation and Buddhist Studies - First Results

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Digital Orientalist Online Conference: Infrastructure　2022/06

  41. Observations on the Intertextual Relationship of the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma Literature Preserved in Chinese Translation Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Khyentse Lecture Series, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany　2022/04

  42. Observations on the Intertextual Relationship and Possible Authorship of the Abhidharma and Yogācāra Works Attributed to Vasubandhu

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Workshop: Buddhism and Language: A Twofold Perspective, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany　2021/10

  43. Towards a New Edition of the Fourth Chapter of the Madhyāntavibhāgaṭīkā by Sthiramati Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Young Scholars Workshop, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan　2018/09

  44. Perspectives on Building a Multilingual Parallel Corpus of Ancient Buddhist Scriptures Based on Machine Learning Invited

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Exzellenzcluster 'Asien und Europa im globalen Kontext', Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany　2018/06

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Research Projects 2

  1. Connectivity and Individuality in Textual Traditions: Augmenting Retrieval for Eurasian Languages

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Offer Organization: Schmidt Sciences

    System: Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI)

    Institution: Tohoku University

    2025/12 -

  2. Google Cloud Research Credits Grant for Cultural Preservation Tasks at the Dharmamitra Project

    Sebastian Nehrdich

    Offer Organization: Google

    System: Google Cloud Research Credits Program

    Institution: Tohoku University

    2024 -