Our Research Center
At the Zoorna Institute for Language, AI and Society, our goal is to advance research in the languages of the Middle East and the Caucasus and develop innovative solutions with social impact.
We are a young research institute, founded in 2024.
Please come back soon to see our progress as we build
our research portfolio and our team.
Our Mission
Our mission is to advance the development and accessibility of linguistic resources and NLP technologies for low-resource languages, with a particular focus on the languages of the Middle East and the Caucasus.
We aim to foster innovation at the intersection of linguistics, AI, social sciences, and language pedagogy, leveraging our solutions to drive societal benefit. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical research practices, and a commitment to inclusivity, we strive to preserve linguistic diversity, bridge communication gaps, and empower historically underserved linguistic communities worldwide.
Our Values
Our core values of are inclusivity, collaboration, innovation, and ethical responsibility. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment that amplifies the voices of marginalized and underserved linguistic communities. Collaboration lies at the heart of our mission; we believe that partnerships across disciplines, cultures, and languages are essential for meaningful progress. Innovation drives us to explore cutting-edge technologies and methodologies, ensuring our work remains impactful and forward-thinking. Above all, we prioritize ethical responsibility, ensuring our research and applications respect the cultural, social, and linguistic contexts of the communities we serve, while promoting linguistic diversity and equitable access to
language resources.
Our Team
The Team
Why Zoorna?
The "zoorna" (or "zurna") is a double-reed wind musical instrument used in folk music in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is very commonly played in Armenian music. Unlike the mystical and soft sounding Duduk, the Zoorna has a loud and piercing tone (but great for celebrations). When I was a kid and talked too much or annoyed my mother, she would call me "zoorna!". And that's how I chose this name.
Karine Megerdoomian