Olusanya Joy

About Me

Hello! My name is Joy, and I am an NLP Researcher at Tonative (Nigeria) and currently serve as the Co-Lead for Deep Learning at Data Science Nigeria (OAU). My work focuses on developing language technologies for low-resource African languages, with a strong emphasis on speech recognition, machine translation, and healthcare applications. I am passionate about building culturally aware AI systems that bridge the gap between technology and African languages.

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and African Languages from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. During my undergraduate studies, I explored the intersection of linguistics and computational methods, which laid the foundation for my interest in low-resource NLP, tone modeling, and the application of AI in healthcare and education.

In 2025, I was awarded a grant by the Deep Learning Indaba to attend Deep Learning Indaba 2025 in Kigali, Rwanda, where I presented my work on ÒWE-YOR: Leveraging Transformer-Based Models for Yoruba Proverb Classification and received the Best Poster Award. I was also selected for the AfricaNLP Mentorship Program (ACL). These recognitions highlight my commitment to advancing NLP for African languages and contributing to the broader AI research community.

I am specifically interested in:

• Preserving African languages through NLP and LLMs
• Speech recognition and tone modeling for tonal languages
• Machine translation for healthcare and education
• Fair and culturally aware generative AI evaluation
• Developing datasets and benchmarks for low-resource languages
• Computational Linguistics

News

• Aug 2025 – Selected for AfricaNLP Mentorship Program (ACL 2025).
• Jul 2025 – Presented poster at Deep Learning Indaba 2025, Kigali, Rwanda.
• Mar 2025 – Co-organized Deep Learning Bootcamp @ DSN OAU.

Research

• Tone in Yoruba Automatic Speech Recognition: Evaluating the impact of Tone Recognition on Transformer-Based ASR Models
• Proverb classification and semantic analysis in African languages.
• Sentiment analysis for mental health prediction.
• Multilingual chatbots and machine translation.

Publications

• Olusanya Joy & Abolade, Daud (2025). ÒWE-YOR: Leveraging Transformer-Based Models for Yoruba Proverb Classification. Poster presented at Deep Learning Indaba 2025, Kigali, Rwanda.
• Olusanya Joy (2025). Tone in Yoruba Automatic Speech Recognition. Undergraduate Thesis, OAU.

Projects

• English-Portuguese Machine Translation – GitHub
• English-Yoruba Machine Translation – GitHub
• Yoruba Sentiment Analysis – GitHub | Live Demo
• Yoruba Proverb Detection – GitHub | Live Demo
• English–French Machine Translation – GitHub
• AskMyPDF – Conversational Document Assistant – GitHub | Live Demo
• Automatic Essay Scoring – GitHub
• Fake News Detection – GitHub | Live Demo

Awards & Fellowships

• Best Poster Award — Deep Learning Indaba 2025, Kigali, Rwanda.
• AfricaNLP 2025 — Research Mentorship Program (ACL).
• Olusanya Joy and Daud Abolade. (2025). ÒWE-YOR: Leveraging Transformer-Based Models for Yoruba Proverb Classification. Best Poster presented at Deep Learning Indaba 2025, Kigali, Rwanda. [View Poster]

Memberships

I am an active member of several professional and community organizations dedicated to STEM development, AI, and NLP in Africa:

• She Code Africa – Empowering young girls and women in technology across Africa through mentorship, networking, technical skill development, and community building.
• Data Science Nigeria (OAU Chapter) – Engaging in AI and data science initiatives for students and professionals.
• Masakhane NLP – Contributing to collaborative research in natural language processing for African languages.
• Linguistics Island – Supporting linguistic research and technology development for African languages.
• AfriClimate AI – Applying AI to address climate and sustainability challenges in Africa.
• Cohere For AI – Participating in AI research and community collaboration.
• Tonative – Engaged in projects focused on tonal language technologies.
• Deep Learning Indaba – Active participant in AI and deep learning initiatives across Africa.
• STEM-for-Development (SFD) – Participating in mentorship programs and professional skills training to increase accessibility to world-class Master’s and PhD programs for STEM students in developing countries.

Teaching & Mentorship

Curriculum Vitae

You can download my full CV here (PDF).

Contact

GitHub: github.com/joynaomi81

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/olusanya-joy

Twitter: @Naomi_Joy___