Prof. Dr. Reinhold Häb-Umbach, Head of the Department of Communications Engineering at the University of Paderborn, has been appointed "ISCA Distinguished Lecturer" by the "International Speech Communication Association" (ISCA). The award is linked to the international communication of current research topics in the field of spoken language. Lecture tours are to lead in particular to those countries that are still underrepresented on the international stage of language processing. The ISCA, which appoints two "Distinguished Lecturers" per year, promotes worldwide activities and exchange in all areas related to research and the latest technologies in spoken language.
Häb-Umbach: "A Distinguished Lecturer can be seen as an ambassador to promote knowledge transfer and also enthusiasm for spoken language research topics. To hold this ambassadorial role for the next two years makes me very proud." The scientist was previously named an "IEEE Fellow" by the US Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), among others. He received the award for his contributions to improving automatic speech recognition. The technology is an important component of voice assistants such as Amazon Echo and Google Home. Häb-Umbach has been a professor at the University of Paderborn since 2001 and heads the Department of Communications Engineering there. He is currently also the spokesperson for the DFG research group "Acoustic Sensor Networks", in which scientists from the universities of Paderborn, Bochum and Erlangen-Nuremberg are working on the next generation of acoustic signal processing. This is to be used, among other things, in the monitoring of buildings or species protection areas and so-called "intelligent rooms" (smart rooms).
