Margaret WoodCNLS Postdoctoral Research Associate
ALDDP-OCCI Corpus Linguistics/AI for LANL Operations 
Office: TA-3, Bldg 1690, Room 000
Mail Stop: B258
Phone: (505) 000-0000
Fax: (505) 665-2659
Email: mkwood@lanl.gov
home page Research highlightMy area of expertise is in the the application of corpus linguistic methodology to address legal interpretive questions in U.S. statutory law and the U.S. Constitution. Currently, I am working on a variety of projects that explore the use of AI/LLMs to streamline document review at LANL. I am interested in the utility and boundaries of AI capabilities, recently conducting research comparing the performance of transformed-based models to grammatically-enhanced ML models for text classification tasks. My other areas of interest include research ethics in quantitative humanities. Past work includes collaborative research investigating the prevalence and severity of gray-area ethical dilemmas that quantitative researchers may be confronted with (e.g., p-hacking, unjustified handling of outliers, biasing research design to obtain favorable results, distorted visualizations).
|  | Educational Background/Employment:- Ph.D. Applied Linguistics (2023) - Northern Arizona University
- M.A. TESL (2018) - Northern Arizona University
- B.A. Cultural Anthropology (2012) - Colorado State University
Research Interests: - Corpus linguistic methodology, text analysis
- Natural language processing
- Large language models
- Information dynamics
- Statutory language
- Quantitative research ethics
Selected Recent Publications: - Wood, M. (accepted). Linguistic variation in functional types of statutory law. Applied Corpus Linguistics, special issue: Corpus Linguistics and Law.
- Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., Kyto, M., Yaw, K., & Wood, M. (2023). On the frequency, prevalence, and perceived severity of Questionable Research Practices. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, 2(3), 100064.
- Yaw, K., Andringa, S., Gass, S., Hancock, G. R., Isbell, D., Kim, J., Kyto, M., Larsson, T., Plonsky, L., Sterling, S., & Wood, M. (2023). Research in progress: Discussions on the past, present, and future of quantitative research ethics in applied linguistics. Language Teaching, 56, 557-561.
- Egbert, J., & Wood, M. (2023). The Corpus of United States State Statutes—Design, Construction and Use. Applied Corpus Linguistics, 3(2), 100047.
- Wood, M. (2022). A lexico-grammatical comparison of statutory law and popular written language. Research in Corpus Linguistics, 10(2), 16-45.
- Goulart, L. & Wood, M. (2021). Methodological synthesis of research using multi-dimensional analysis. Journal of Research Design and Statistics in Linguistics and Communication Science, 6(2), 107-137.
Book chapters under contract
- Goulart, L., Wood, M., & Biber, D. (under contract). Corpus Analysis of Register, Genre and Text Types. Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, 2nd edition.
- Wood, M. & Goulart, L. (under contract). Multi-Dimensional Analysis. The Cambridge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, 2nd edition.
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