North American Computational Linguistics Open Competition

"NACLO" redirects here. For the oxidizing chemical in bleach, NaClO, see Sodium hypochlorite.

The North American Computational Linguistics Open competition (NACLO), formerly called the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad before January 1, 2020, is a computational linguistics competition for high school students in the United States and Canada that has been held since 2007. For the 2021 Open competition, approximately 1300 to 1400 students competed. Since 2008 the contest has consisted of two rounds, the second being administered to the top scorers in the first round. The top-scoring students on the second round qualify for the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL), one of the international science olympiads.

History

Since the mid-1960s, problem-solving competitions in linguistics for secondary school students have been taking place at various locations around the world. In Russia, the Moscow and St. Petersburg Linguistic Olympiads are credited with inspiring hundreds of young talented scholars to choose linguistics as an academic major and profession. Presently there are national contests in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia and Africa, as well as North America. NACLO is part of a consortium that shares resources with other English-speaking contests such as the United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad, OzCLO (Australia) and the All-Ireland Linguistics Olympiad. There is also an International Linguistic Olympiad in which students from many countries compete, as well as dozens of local competitions held in individual towns and schools across Europe and the USA.

In 1998 the first US Linguistics Olympiad was held at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, in 1998. 18 students participated the first year, 88 participated the second year, and 67 participated the third year of this local pilot program. From 2001 to 2006, the program existed as an informal, web-based educational activity known as the Linguistics Challenge.

The two US teams in each year won several awards at the IOL in 2007 and 2008. Each year, one of the two US teams won a gold medal (or first diploma) in the team contest. In addition, several team members won individual medals.^[1][2]

In 2019, following a request from the US Olympic Committee that NACLO comply with the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 (aka the Ted Stevens Act), which grants exclusive rights of usage in the US of the words Olympic and Olympiad to the Olympic Committee, the contest agreed to change its name to the North American Computational Linguistics Open competition.^[3]

Format

The format of the contest changed significantly between 2007 and 2008. The 2007 contest consisted of eight problems given in a single round open to all participants. The 2008 competition consisted of two rounds. The first round was open to all contestants and consisted of a three-hour, five-problem written examination. The top scorers on the open round advanced to the invitational round, which was a five-hour, seven-problem written examination divided into two parts; the first part lasted 3 and a half hours and contained five problems, while the second part lasted one and a half hour and contained two problems.^[4] The top eight scorers from the invitational round were selected to participate in the IOL. The booklets with problems and solutions are available on the main NACLO website.^[5]

IOL qualifiers

From 2007 to 2010 the USA sent two teams annually to the IOL.

2007 - St. Petersburg, Russia[6][7] Team Name Award Team award Team leader 1 Adam Hesterberg gold medal Dragomir Radev, Lori Levin Jeffrey Lim best solution to problem 2 Ryan Musa Rachel Zax 2 Josh Falk gold medal Rebecca Jacobs Michael Gottlieb Anna Tchetchetkine

2008 - Slantchev Bryag, Bulgaria[8][9] Team Name Award Team award Team leader 1 Josh Falk silver trophy, cup for highest average score on the individual contest Dragomir Radev, Lori Levin Jeffrey Lim bronze medal Anand Natarajan silver medal Guy Tabachnick bronze medal 2 Morris Alper silver medal gold trophy Rebecca Jacobs bronze medal Jae-kyu Lee best solution to problem 4 Hanzhi Zhu gold medal, best solution to problem 1

2009 - Wrocław, Poland[10][11] Team Name Award Team award Team leader "Red" Morris Alper honorable mention gold trophy Dragomir Radev, Lori Levin Alan Huang bronze medal, best solution to problem 1 Rebecca Jacobs silver medal Anand Natarajan honorable mention "Blue" John Berman bronze medal, best solution to problem 5 Sergei Bernstein bronze medal Daryl Hansen honorable mention Vivaek Shivakumar honorable mention

2010 - Stockholm, Sweden[12][13][14] Team Name Award Team award Team leader "Red" Ben Sklaroff gold medal, best solution to problem 4 3rd highest combined individual scores Dragomir Radev, Lori Levin Allen Yuan silver medal In-Sung Na honorable mention Brian Kong honorable mention "Blue" Martin Camacho silver medal, best solution to problem 2 highest combined individual scores Tian-Yi Damien Jiang silver medal, best solution to problem 1 Alexander Iriza bronze medal Alan Chang bronze medal

In 2011 the USA sent three teams, and Canada also sent a team.

2011 - Pittsburgh, USA^[15][16][17]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team award	Team leader
USA	"Red"	Aaron Klein	bronze medal	gold trophy, highest combined individual scores	Dragomir Radev
		Wesley Jones	silver medal
		Duligur Ibeling	silver medal
		Morris Alper	gold medal, best solution to problem 2
	"White"	Erik Andersen	honorable mention
		Allen Yuan	silver medal
		Chelsea Voss	honorable mention
		Arjun Srinivasan	honorable mention
	"Blue"	Alexander Wade	silver medal, best solution to problem 4
		Ophir Lifshitz	honorable mention
		Caroline Ellison	honorable mention, best solution to problem 3
		Rachel McEnroe
Canada		Keunjae Go			Patrick Littell
		Jordan Ho
		Daniel Mitropolsky	bronze medal
		William Zhang	honorable mention

From 2012 to 2016, the USA sent two teams annually, and Canada sent one team annually.

2012 - Ljubljana, Slovenia^[18][19]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team leader
USA	"Red"	Darryl Wu	silver medal, best solution to problem 1	2nd highest combined individual scores	Dragomir Radev, Lori Levin
		Anderson Wang	gold medal, best solution to problem 4
		Samuel Zbarsky	honorable mention
		Allan Sadun	silver medal
	"Blue"	Alexander Wade	gold medal, best solution to problem 3, best solution to problem 5	gold trophy, 3rd highest combined individual scores
		Aaron Klein	silver medal
		Aidan Kaplan
		Erik Andersen	bronze medal
Canada		Simon Huang			Patrick Littell
		Keunjae Go	honorable mention
		David Penco
		Qin Long

2013 - Manchester, UK^[20]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team leader
USA	Red	Aaron Klein	silver medal	gold trophy, highest combined individual scores	Dragomir Radev, Lori Levin
		Max Schindler	bronze medal
		Alexander Wade	gold medal
		Tom McCoy	bronze medal
	Blue	Rebecca Burks	honorable mention
		Jeffrey Ling	silver medal
		Erik Andersen	honorable mention
		Simone Stoyen
Canada		Jordan Ho			Patrick Littell
		Janis Chang
		Daniel Lovsted	bronze medal
		Stella Lau	honorable mention

2014 - Beijing, China^[21]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team leader
USA	"Red"	Darryl Wu	gold medal, 2nd place individual, best solution to problem 2	gold trophy, highest combined individual scores	Dragomir Radev, Lori Levin
		Jackie Bredenberg	honorable mention
		Alexander Babiak	silver medal
		Deven Lahoti	silver medal
	"Blue"	David Sokratov	honorable mention
		James Bloxham	bronze medal
		Kevin Li	bronze medal
		Catherine Wu	silver medal, best solution to problem 4
Canada		Daniel Lovsted	gold medal, 3rd place individual	2nd highest combined individual scores	Heather Newell
		Yan Huang	silver medal
		Simon Huang	bronze medal
		Minh-Tam Nguyen	honorable mention

2015 - Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria^[22]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team leader
USA	"Red"	James Bloxham	gold medal, 3rd place individual, best solution to problem 3	silver trophy, highest combined individual scores	Dragomir Radev, Lori Levin
		Conor Stuart-Roe	silver medal
		James Wedgwood	gold medal, 1st place individual, best solution to problem 5
		Kevin Yang	gold medal
	"Blue"	Julian Gau	silver medal	3rd highest combined individual scores
		Kevin Q Li	honorable mention
		Kevin M Li	silver medal
		Nilai Sarda	bronze medal
Canada		Ben Zhang	honorable mention		Pat Littell
		Ella Bei
		Emma McLean	bronze medal
		James Hyett	honorable mention

2016 - Mysore, India^[23][24]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team leader
USA	"Red"	Laurestine Irene Bradford	honorable mention	highest combined individual scores	Dragomir Radev, Aleka Blackwell
		James Wedgwood	gold medal, 2nd place individual
		Erik Metz	silver medal
		Shuheng "Nelson" Niu	silver medal
	"Blue"	Margarita Misirpashayeva	silver medal
		Wyatt R. Reeves	bronze medal
		Jenna LaFleur	honorable mention
		Siye "Annie" Zhu	bronze medal
Canada		Kevin Sun	honorable mention, best solution to problem 1		Heather Newell
		Minh-Tam Nguyen	honorable mention
		Lawrence Pang
		James Hogan	honorable mention

From 2017 to 2022, the USA sent two teams and Canada sent two teams, one francophone and one anglophone.

2017 - Dublin, Ireland^[25][26][27]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team Leader
USA	"Red"	Brian Xiao	gold medal, best solution to problem 3		Aleka Blackwell, Lori Levin, Dragomir Radev
		Andrew Tockman	silver medal
		Ziyan Lei	silver medal
		Siye Zhu	bronze medal
	"Blue"	Joseph Feffer	silver medal
		Sonia Reilly	bronze medal
		Vanessa Hu
		Wesley Zhang
Canada	"Castors" (French)	Antonin Benoit			Heather Newell, Daniel Lovsted
		Corinne Soucy
		Georges Awaad
		Samuel Ouvrard
	"Moose" (English)	Gabriel Kammer
		James Hogan
		Jane Li
		Kevin Liang

2018 - Prague, Czech Republic^[28][29]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team Leader
USA	"Red"	Ethan A. Chi	silver medal	silver trophy	Aleka Blackwell, Lori Levin, Dragomir Radev
		Swapnil Garg	gold medal, best solution to problem 5
		Andrew Tockman	gold medal, best solution to problem 1
		Brian Xiao	bronze medal
	"Blue"	Russell Emerine	silver medal	gold trophy, highest combined individual scores
		Pranav Krishna	gold medal
		Benjamin LaFond	gold medal
		Mihir Singhal	silver medal
Canada	"Castors" (French)	Georges Awaad			Daniel Lovsted, Andrés Pablo Salanova, Gustavo Beritognolo
		Yeryomin George
		Samson Nathan
		Corinne Soucy
	"Moose" (English)	Ken Jiang	bronze medal
		Shuli Jones	honorable mention
		Nathan Kim
		Kevin Liang	bronze medal

2019 - Yongin, South Korea^[30][31]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team Leader
USA	"Red"	Wesley Zhang	gold medal, best solution to problem 5, 2nd place individual	highest combined individual scores	Aleka Blackwell, Lori Levin, Dragomir Radev
		Andrew Tockman	gold medal
		Ziyan Lei	silver medal
		Russell Emerine	silver medal
	"Blue"	Skyelar Raiti	silver medal
		Pranav Krishna	silver medal
		Jeremy Zhou	silver medal
		Katherine He	honorable mention
Canada	"Castors" (French)	Jonathan Deschênes			Patrick Littell, Andrés Pablo Salanova, Corinne Soucy
		Geneviève Fournier
		Florence Lefebvre
		Ariel P. Soucy
	"Moose" (English)	Ken Jiang	gold medal, best solution to problem 1, 1st place individual	3rd highest combined individual score
		Tianqi Jiang	silver medal
		Nathan Kim	silver medal
		Zed Li	honorable mention

2021 - Ventspils, Latvia^[32][33][34]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team Leader
USA	"Red"	Jonathan Huang	gold medal	silver trophy	Aleka Blackwell, Lori Levin, Dragomir Radev
		Evelyn Sun	honorable mention
		Riley Kong	bronze medal
		Lydia Wang
	"Blue"	Jeremy Zhou	bronze medal	honorable mention
		Adithya Ram Kalyanam	honorable mention
		Jonathan Song	bronze medal
		Benjamin Myer Neithardt	bronze medal
Canada	"Castors" (French)	Bogdan-Alexandru Sava			Patrick Littell, Andrés Pablo Salanova, Corinne Soucy
		Ariel Soucy
		Yiyuan Zhang
		Aron Szocs
	"Moose" (English)	Thomas Frith	bronze medal
		Kunaal Chandrashekar	honorable mention
		Ellina Zhang
		Leo Tenenbaum

2022 - Castletown, Isle of Man^[32][33][34]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team Leader
USA	"Red"	Benjamin Mcavoy-Bickford	silver medal	bronze trophy	Aleka Blackwell, Lori Levin, Dragomir Radev
		Luke Robitaille	gold medal
		Riley Kong	silver medal
		Rishab Parthasarathy	silver medal
	"Blue"	Arul Kolla
		Emmy Bonser	honorable mention
		Grant Wang
		Tapas Gobalakrishna
Canada	"Castors" (French)	Bogdan Sava			Patrick Littell, Andrés Pablo Salanova, Corinne Soucy
		Cédric Campeau
		Isabella Zhang
		Serine F Shin
	"Moose" (English)	Aidan Wang	bronze medal
		Kevin Yan	bronze medal
		Kunaal Chandrashekar	silver medal
		Perry Dai

2023 - Bansko, Bulgaria ^[35][36]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team Leader
USA	"Red"	Arul Kolla	Bronze Medal	Silver Trophy	Aleka Blackwell, Lori Levin
		Deeraj Pothapragada	Silver Medal
		Grant Wang
		Darren Su	Bronze Medal
	"Blue"	Benjamin Yang	Bronze Medal
		Soren Schmidt	Bronze Medal
		Jingyuan Li	Honorable Mention
		Mritika Senthil
Canada	"Castors" (French)	Bogdan Sava		Silver Trophy	Patrick Littell, Andrés Pablo Salanova, Corinne Soucy
		Félix Von Veh
		Nina Geng
		Amelia Geng
	"Moose" (English)	Kunaal Chandrashekar	Gold Medal
		Sukrith Velmineti	Silver Medal
		Perry Dai	Bronze Medal
		Victoria Li	Honorable Mention

2024 - Brasília, Brazil ^[37][38]

Country	Team	Name	Award	Team Award	Team Leader
USA	"Red"	Jonathan Sakunkoo			Lori Levin, Robin Hammer
		Deeraj Pothapragada	Gold Medal, 1st place individual
		Jonathan Ding
		Aaron Chai
	"Blue"	Kevin Wang	Honorable Mention
		Devin Joe	Gold Medal, 2nd place individual
		Varin Sikka	Gold Medal
		Linus Law
Canada	"Castors" (French)	Jonah Janzen			Corinne Soucy, Ken Jiang
		Mingzhe Li
		Serine Shin
		Jade Diwan
	"Moose" (English)	Marvin Mao	Silver Medal
		Aidan Wang	Honorable Mention
		Perry Dai
		Sophia Davis Morris