NB
Italy · VenetoAvailable for selected work

Nicolò Busetto.
AI Researcher & AI Engineer.

Working at the intersection of multilingual NLP, machine translation and the linguistic foundations of large language models — from rigorous evaluation across 47 languages to production-grade AI for global content.

View CVPublicationsBook Consultation
7
Peer-reviewed publications
47
Languages evaluated · MENLO
4
Languages spoken
Affiliations & Collaborators

Where the work
takes place.

A practice that spans enterprise AI translation, computational-linguistics research, education and continuing study across DeepLearning.AI, Coursera and Udacity.

  • AI · Language Solutions
    RWS Group
  • Co-founder
    AI Localization Think Tank
  • Education
    Le Wagon
  • Research lineage
    Ca' Foscari University of Venice
  • Publication venues
    ICLR · LREC · CLiC-it
  • Continuing study
    DeepLearning.AI · Coursera · Udacity
About

A practice between
research and engineering.

I build and study language technologies that work across cultures and languages. My research has appeared at ICLR, LREC and CLiC-it; my engineering practice lives inside enterprise AI translation at RWS Group. I'm equally interested in the empirical behaviour of transformer models and in the linguistic structures — from Shakespeare's sonnets to Italian poetry — that reveal what these systems actually learn.

At RWS Group I work on AI translation and multilingual language technology — including the research that became MENLO, our ICLR 2026 framework for native-like quality evaluation across 47 language varieties.

My research lineage runs through Italian computational linguistics — work on Shakespeare's sonnets, BERT's behaviour on Italian poetry, and the role of frequency versus linguistic structure inside transformer embeddings (LREC, CLiC-it, BINLP, IJNLC, MDPI). With Belén Agulló García I co-founded the AI Localization Think Tank.

The work I value most is quiet, precise and rigorous — at the boundary between language, mathematics and engineering craft.

  • Research

    Focus

    Multilingual NLP, LLM evaluation across 47 languages, reward modelling and the linguistic structures that transformer models actually learn.

  • Engineering

    Focus

    AI translation and language solutions at RWS Group — bringing research into reliable, production-grade multilingual systems.

  • Community

    Focus

    Co-founder of the AI Localization Think Tank — a forum for honest conversations about AI, translation quality and the future of multilingual content.

  • Education

    Focus

    Teaching at Le Wagon, mentorship in applied NLP, and continuing study via DeepLearning.AI, Coursera and Udacity. Italian teaching qualification (24 CFU).

Research Areas

Where my attention
currently lives.

A connected set of problems I return to across academic and industrial work — chosen for their depth, leverage and long horizon.

01 —

Multilingual NLP

Native-like quality, preference modelling and evaluation of large language models across dozens of language varieties.

47 LanguagesPreference PairsCross-lingual
02 —

Machine Translation

AI translation systems for enterprise content — from neural MT to LLM-based translation, post-editing and quality estimation.

NMTLLM TranslationQuality Estimation
03 —

LLM Evaluation

Audience-design inspired rubrics, RL-trained judges and reward models for scalable, calibrated multilingual evaluation.

Reward ModelsRLHFJudges
04 —

Computational Linguistics

Lexical, syntactic and semantic predictability — what transformer models reveal about how language is actually structured.

PredictabilitySubwordsSyntax
05 —

Computational Stylistics

Sound-sense harmony, irony and appraisal in literary corpora — Shakespeare's sonnets and 20th-century Italian poetry.

ShakespeareItalian PoetrySonnets
06 —

Applied AI

Bringing research into production — workflows where AI augments human linguists rather than replacing the craft.

LocalizationHuman-in-the-loopMTPE
07 —

Language & Culture

Trust, cultural fidelity and the question of what counts as native-like quality in machine-generated text.

Cultural FidelityNative-likeTrust
Experience

A record of work
across research and industry.

A trajectory across enterprise language solutions, applied AI, computational-linguistics research and education — currently at RWS Group.

  1. Present
    Italy · Hybrid

    AI Researcher & AI Engineer

    RWS Group

    Working on AI translation and multilingual language technology at one of the world's largest language solutions companies — including research that contributed to MENLO, our framework for native-like quality evaluation across 47 languages (ICLR 2026).

  2. Ongoing
    International

    Co-founder

    AI Localization Think Tank

    Co-founded a community and research forum, with Belén Agulló García (Ph.D.), exploring how AI is reshaping localization, translation quality and the practice of multilingual content at scale.

  3. Recent
    Italy

    Educator

    Le Wagon

    Teaching and mentorship within the Le Wagon ecosystem — bringing applied AI and NLP practice to a community of new engineers entering the industry.

  4. 2019 — 2024
    Venice

    Researcher

    Ca' Foscari University of Venice — Research lineage

    A continuing line of computational-linguistics research with the SPARSAR group: irony detection in Shakespeare's sonnets, predictability in Italian poetry, and the linguistic limits of deep models. Published at LREC, CLiC-it, BINLP and IJNLC.

  5. Earned
    Italy

    Teaching Qualification

    Percorso Formativo 24 CFU

    Italian formal teaching qualification (24 CFU) — completed alongside research and engineering practice, reflecting a continuing commitment to education and pedagogy.

Selected Work

Featured projects,
research and tooling.

From MENLO's 47-language preference dataset to early SPARSAR work on Shakespeare's sonnets — the projects that anchor the publications opposite.

/01 — Project

MENLO

From Preferences to Proficiency. A framework that operationalises native-like response quality for LLMs across 47 language varieties — including a 6,423-pair preference dataset and RL-trained generative reward models. Published at ICLR 2026.

LLMsRLHF47 LanguagesReward Models
Publication
/02 — Project

Sound-Sense Harmony

Multidimensional visualisation of sound-sense harmony for Shakespeare's sonnets — a computational-stylistics approach to literary classification, published in MDPI Applied Sciences (2024).

StylisticsShakespeareVisualisation
Publication
/03 — Project

BERT Predictability Suite

A series of stress tests probing BERT's predictability of lexical, syntactic and semantic structures — across canonical and non-canonical Italian poetry. Published in IJNLC and at BINLP 2022.

BERTItalianSubwords
Publication
/04 — Project

Linguistic Similarity

An LREC 2022 study showing how absolute and relative frequency conspire inside transformer embeddings — and how linguistic features outperform pure cosine distance for similarity.

EmbeddingsFrequencyLREC
Publication
/05 — Project

SPARSAR · Shakespeare

Two CLiC-it 2019 contributions on annotating Shakespeare's sonnets with Appraisal Theory and detecting irony with the SPARSAR system — early computational work on rhetorical structure.

Appraisal TheoryIronySPARSAR
Publication
/06 — Project

Language Weaver Pro · Applied

Applied work inside RWS Group's enterprise AI translation stack — the practical counterpart to the research above, bringing multilingual model quality to production content workflows.

Enterprise MTRWSProduction
Publications

Selected peer-reviewed
and academic publications.

A curated subset of recent work. Full publication record available on Google Scholar and ORCID.

Teaching & Consulting

Teaching, advising,
and shaping practice.

A continuing thread across my work — sharing rigorous practice with students, leaders and fellow practitioners.

Industry

AI Localization Think Tank

Co-founder · with Belén Agulló García, Ph.D.

A community and research forum exploring how AI is reshaping localization, translation quality and the practice of multilingual content.

Education

Le Wagon

Educator · Italy

Teaching and mentorship inside one of Europe's leading coding bootcamps — bringing applied AI and NLP into the hands of new engineers.

Qualification

Percorso Formativo 24 CFU

Italian Teaching Qualification

Formal Italian teaching qualification, reflecting a long-standing commitment to education alongside research and engineering practice.

Speaking

AI Localization · Multilingual NLP

Industry events · Workshops

Talks and workshops on machine translation, multilingual evaluation and the future of human-AI collaboration in language work.

Mentorship

Applied NLP · Career Mentoring

Independent

One-to-one mentorship for researchers and engineers transitioning into AI / NLP roles in industry.

Consulting

Multilingual AI Strategy

Selected engagements

Advisory engagements on multilingual AI, machine translation pipelines, evaluation frameworks and the integration of LLMs into language workflows.

Curriculum Vitae

A concise summary
of the record.

Available as a PDF for hiring committees, programme chairs and conference organisers.

Download
Full Curriculum Vitae

Includes complete publication list, talks, supervision and service.

Download PDF
~ 2 pages · A4
Areas of Expertise
  • Multilingual NLP and large language model evaluation
  • Machine translation — neural MT, LLM-based MT, MTPE workflows
  • Computational linguistics: lexical, syntactic and semantic structure
  • Reinforcement learning, reward modelling and preference learning
  • Computational stylistics and literary corpus analysis
  • Applied AI engineering for enterprise language solutions
Education
  • 2019 — 2024
    Research lineage · Ca' Foscari University of Venice
    Computational Linguistics · SPARSAR group

    A continuing line of research collaboration on computational stylistics, BERT/transformer analysis and Italian-language NLP — published at LREC, CLiC-it, BINLP, IJNLC and MDPI Applied Sciences.

  • Earned
    Percorso Formativo 24 CFU
    Italian Teaching Qualification

    Formal qualification for teaching at the Italian secondary level.

Awards & Distinctions
  • Lead author · MENLO — ICLR 2026
  • Co-founder · AI Localization Think Tank
  • Long-form contributor · industry conversations on AI in localization
Certifications
  • Generative AI with Large Language Models — DeepLearning.AI · 2023
  • Machine Translation — Coursera · 2023
  • Natural Language Processing with Classification & Vector Spaces — Coursera · 2022
  • Natural Language Processing with Probabilistic Models — Coursera · 2022
  • Advanced NLP with Python for Machine Learning — LinkedIn · 2022
  • AWS Machine Learning Foundations — Udacity · 2021
  • Fine-tune BERT for Text Classification with TensorFlow — Coursera · 2021
  • Sentiment Analysis with Deep Learning using BERT — Coursera · 2021
Languages
  • ItalianNative / Bilingual
  • EnglishNative / Bilingual
  • SpanishLimited working
  • FrenchElementary
Contact

A short message
is always welcome.

For research collaborations, advisory engagements, teaching invitations or thoughtful conversations.

Currently

Reviewing proposals for advisory engagements starting Q3. Reply within 3 working days.

Time zone

Central European Time · Italy · Veneto

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