Johns Hopkins Speech Recognition Workshop

[Steve Greenberg <steveng@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Center for Language and Speech Processing at the Johns Hopkins
University is offering a unique summer internship opportunity which we
would like you to bring to the attention of your best students in the
current junior class.

This internship is unique in the sense that the selected students will
participate in cutting edge research as full members alongside leading
scientists from industry, academia and the government.  The exciting
nature of the internship is the exposure of the undergraduate students
to the emerging fields of automatic speech recognition (ASR) and
natural language processing (NLP).

We are specifically looking to attract new talent into the field and,
as such, do not require the students to have prior knowledge of ASR or
NLP technology.  Please take a few moments to nominate suitable bright
students who may be interested in this internships.  Details are
attached below.

If you have any questions, please contact us by phone, e-mail or via
the internet.

Sincerely,


Frederick Jelinek
Professor and Director.

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                        INTERNSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT

The Center for Language and Speech Processing at the Johns Hopkins
University is seeking outstanding members of the current junior class
to participate in a summer workshop on language engineering from June
29 to August 21, 1998.

No limitation is placed on the undergraduate major. Only relevant
skills, employment experience, past academic record and the strength
of letters of recommendation will be considered. Students of
Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, Cognitive Science,
Electrical Engineering, Linguistics, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology,
etc.  may apply. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

    *   An opportunity to explore an exciting new area of research;

    *   A two week tutorial on speech and language technology;

    *   Mentoring by an experienced researcher;

    *   Use of a computer workstation throughout the workshop;

    *   A $4800 stipend and $1680 towards per diem expenses;

    *   Private accommodation for 8 weeks covering the workshop;

    *   Travel expenses to and from the workshop venue;

    *   Participation in project planning activities.

The workshop provides a vigorously stimulating and enriching
intellectual environment and hopes to attract students to eventually
pursue graduate study or research in the field of human language
technologies.

Application forms are available via the internet or by mail.
Electronic submission of applications is strongly encouraged.
Applications must be received at CLSP by 30th Jan., 1998. For details,
contact CLSP, Barton Hall, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD
21218, visit our web site at http://www.clsp.jhu.edu, or call 410 516
4237.


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                        PRELIMINARY WORKSHOP INFORMATION

Automated systems that interact with human users in naturally spoken
language will greatly enhance productivity and program usability. Such
interfaces will act as on- and off-ramps to the information
super-highway, allowing user-friendly access to services. In other
tasks, such as accessing a database of maintenance manuals while
performing intricate repairs, and for handicapped users, enhancing the
interface with speech is essential, not just a convenience. Yet other
applications are conversion of phone mail to text, transcription of
radio or television programs, translation of data from one language to
another, and information retrieval.

While speech systems have made a commercial appearance, mostly in the
form of personal dictation systems, recognition technology is still
inadequate in many respects for the tasks listed above. For instance,
automatic recognition of natural conversational speech results in
incorrect transcription of one-third of the words spoken. Mechanical
translations of technical manuals from English to Spanish result in
confusing and ungrammatical instructions. Even parsing sentences from
newspaper articles, which one may expect to be easy due to their
professional editing, leads to faulty automatic analysis of half the
sentences.

There is need to make progress in this important field. The number of
available personnel educated in the field is small and relatively few
universities presently educate students capable of performing the
required tasks.

We are organizing a six week workshop on Language Engineering at the
Johns Hopkins University from July 13 to August 24, 1998, in which
mixed teams of professionals and students will work together to
advance the state of the art.  The professionals will be university
professors and leading industrial and government researchers presently
working in widely dispersed locations. Six or more undergraduate
students will be selected through a nationwide search from the current
junior class based on outstanding academic promise. Graduate students
will be selected in accordance with their demonstrated research
performance.

Three topics of research for this workshop were determined by a group
of leading professionals in the field:

   1.   Dynamic Segmental Models of Speech Coarticulation.
   2.   Rapid Speech Recognizer Adaptation for New Speakers.
   3.   Core NLP Technology Applicable to Multiple Languages.

The Center for Language and Speech Processing has successfully
organized similar workshops for the last three summers.

Visit the CLSP web pages for project details and information about
past workshops.