Sam works on building artificial neural network models that can understand the meanings of sentences, with the dual goals of both improving language technology for problems like translation and facilitating basic research on human language. He co-directs the Machine Learning for Language group (with Prof. Kyunghyun Cho) and the larger CILVR applied machine learning lab. He completed a PhD at Stanford University in 2016 with advisors Chris Manning and Chris Potts. He received a 2017 Google Faculty Research Award, and led a twenty-researcher team project during the summer of 2018 as part of the JSALT workshop program.