Subject: Johns Hopkins Speech Recognition Workshop From: Steve Greenberg <steveng(at)ICSI.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 14:02:10 -0800The 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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.