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Naomi Harte: Enhancing Speech Communication Technology

09 August 2022

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Speech technology is life-changing. It can literally give voice to someone who has lost theirs through illness. Or it can be misused for malign purposes like the creation of ‘deep fakes.’

The ADAPT Centre is at the forefront of designing mathematical algorithms to enhance speech communication between humans and technology. Professor Naomi Harte’s work is underpinned by signal processing and machine learning, but it is her multimodal speech analysis which is driving advances in the technology. Her work to fuse audio and visual cues may soon be applied in settings as varied as the kitchen, the boardroom and the aeroplane cockpit.

From developing systems to help college lecturers engage with remote learners, to facilitating more seamless interactions with our smart speakers, Professor Naomi Harte shares fascinating insights from her work.

TOPICS WE DISCUSSED INCLUDE

  • • How deep learning can improve our everyday interactions with smart speakers and assistants.
  • • The life-changing impact of speech synthesis, but how its misuse could be a societal harm.
  • • Why the analysis of birdsong is being used to improve speech technology.
  • • How The Adapt Centre will chair the world-renowned INTERSPEECH conference in Dublin in 2023.

 

GUEST DETAILS
Naomi is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering in Trinity College. She is Co-PI and a founding member of the ADAPT SFI Centre.

In ADAPT, she has led a major Research Theme centred on Multimodal Interaction involving researchers from Universities across Ireland and was instrumental in developing the future vision for the Centre for 2021-2026. She is also a lead academic of the hugely successful Sigmedia Research Group in the School of Engineering.

Prior to returning to academia in 2008, she worked in high-tech start-ups in the field of DSP Systems Development, including her own company. She holds tech patents and licences through her collaboration with Google in the USA.

MORE INFORMATION
www.tcd.ie/research/profiles/?profile=nharte
scholar.google.com/citations?user=…wUfcAAAAJ&hl=en
www.linkedin.com/in/prof-naomi-harte/
Email:[email protected]

YOUR HOST
Aideen Finnegan is an IMRO award-winning broadcast journalist with almost 18 years experience, including ten years across two national newsrooms. Find her on Twitter @AideenFinnegan or on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/aideenfinnegan/