- Email: [email protected]
Tribute to James L. Flanagan
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SPEECH Speech Communication 21 (1997) l-2
Tribute to James L. Flanagan Recipient of National Medal of Science of the U.S., 1996 Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Paris-Sud, 1996 One of the things that we take pleasure in doing is to write for people of real prominence about their contributions in the field. In this light, we take pride in writing this tribute for Jim Flanagan on behalf of the Editorial Board of Speech Communication. In the past year, 1996, Jim’s pioneering work in speech and auditory processing was recognized by the United States Government, in the form of the National Medal of Science presented by the President of U.S. Bill Clinton, and by the administration of the University of Paris-Sud, in the form of a Doctor Honoris Causa. These special awards are granted to Jim Flanagan based on his universally acclaimed research contributions and impacts in the field of speech communications. We, as research colleagues and friends in the same field, would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jim on this well deserved, and highly tangible recognition and in the meantime pride ourselves for the work we do in hope of achieving more progress. Jim for over forty years has pioneered and led the field of speech communications amid the telecommunications revolution which has changed the ways in which people live and work. The modem telephony brought people closer together by delivering voice to the listener’s ear from afar. The scientific field of speech communications, with a broad scope ranging from electroacoustics which addresses transformations between sound and electrical signals to machine intelligence for automatic understanding of human speech, produces the core technologies that support this revolution. Jim Flanagan in his early years of research career studied the basilar membrane motion, building up the knowledge that led to useful engineering models for auditory signal processing. Jim’s pioneering work in psychoacoustics is particularly notable. Jim studied and established perceptual difference limens (DL) in various attributes of the speech sound, e.g., formant frequency, amplitude, bandwidth and fundamental frequency. The results led to fundamental understanding of human’s auditory sensitivity to speech. In a similar vein, Jim also led the theoretical and experimental development of a complete, physiologically based model of vocal excitation for speech production. These models (i.e. speech production and perception), and the associated understanding of the physiological processes, are what differentiate speech communications studies from the pure mathematical formalism which defines the communication process between machines. Jim’s studies gave speech communications its real meaning. Jim is an engineer and was taught to understand the importance of mathematical formalism, even though his major interest is in speech as being produced and heard by human. Realizing the potential in the applications of communication and information theory to better understanding of the human communication process, Jim developed a model which helped analyze the theoretical capacity limits of a ‘human’ communication channel and lead to metrics for measuring attributes of the human channel. Jim’s insights put speech communications on a ‘tractable’ path. Discussions on speech communications in telephony are incomplete without talking about transmission of the speech signals over the telephone network. Jim Flanagan’s contribution in speech transmission is unparalleled. He was the inventor of the formant vocoder and the phase vocoder which have greatly influenced the design of modem speech coding systems for toll transmissions, voice mail systems, telephone answering machines and the recent cellular systems. Jim was also instrumental in the development of the ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) coding scheme which was adopted by ITU (formerly CCITT) as an international standard for digital voice transmission. He has also led research on acoustic signal processing, and in particular, efforts which have led to the development of autodirective microphone arrays for teleconferencing. Jim’s work turned theoretical understanding into innovations with real impact, as attested by over 45 patents.
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Tribute to James L. Flanagan
Jim’s leadership at Bell Labs (1957-1990) nurtured a variety of world-class innovations including linear predictive coding and coded excitation (Atall, subband coding (Crochiere), speech recognition based on hidden Markov models (Juang, Levinson, Rabiner and Sondhi), and speaker verification systems (Rosenberg). His managerial excellence, both at Bell Laboratories and more recently at Rutgers University, has guided the research of several hundred colleagues, many of whom have become leaders in speech processing as well as in closely aligned fields. Jim has also significantly contributed to international research collaboration and education. He has visited many countries to present instructive lectures and has accepted a large number of foreign researchers to his laboratory and university. The researchers who learned directly or indirectly from him are now playing important roles in scientific and engineering activities covering a great part of the world. Jim Flanagan’s research has been recognized by a wide range of technical, commercial, governmental and academic organizations, and has led to his receiving the following honors: 1958 1969 1970 1976 1977 1978 1983 1985 1986 1986 1992
Fellow, Acoustical Society of America Fellow, IEEE Achievement Award, IEEE, Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing Society Society Award, IEEE, Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing Society Distinguished Service Award, in Science, American Speech and Hearing Association Member, National Academy of Engineering Member, National Academy of Science L.M. Ericsson International Prize for Telecommunications Gold Medal, Acoustical Society of America Edison Medal, IEEE Marconi Award
We not only identify with Jim’s accomplishments but enjoy the pride in having a prominent recognized by the society. Congratulations again, Jim.
colleague
who is highly
B.H. Juang, C. Sorin, S. Furui and L. Pols
Acknowledgements We would like to thank Larry Rabiner for his help in writing this tribute and in providing the compiled list of honors that Jim Flanagan has received so far.
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ELSEVIER
SPEECH Speech Communication 21 (1997) l-2
Tribute to James L. Flanagan Recipient of National Medal of Science of the U.S., 1996 Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Paris-Sud, 1996 One of the things that we take pleasure in doing is to write for people of real prominence about their contributions in the field. In this light, we take pride in writing this tribute for Jim Flanagan on behalf of the Editorial Board of Speech Communication. In the past year, 1996, Jim’s pioneering work in speech and auditory processing was recognized by the United States Government, in the form of the National Medal of Science presented by the President of U.S. Bill Clinton, and by the administration of the University of Paris-Sud, in the form of a Doctor Honoris Causa. These special awards are granted to Jim Flanagan based on his universally acclaimed research contributions and impacts in the field of speech communications. We, as research colleagues and friends in the same field, would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jim on this well deserved, and highly tangible recognition and in the meantime pride ourselves for the work we do in hope of achieving more progress. Jim for over forty years has pioneered and led the field of speech communications amid the telecommunications revolution which has changed the ways in which people live and work. The modem telephony brought people closer together by delivering voice to the listener’s ear from afar. The scientific field of speech communications, with a broad scope ranging from electroacoustics which addresses transformations between sound and electrical signals to machine intelligence for automatic understanding of human speech, produces the core technologies that support this revolution. Jim Flanagan in his early years of research career studied the basilar membrane motion, building up the knowledge that led to useful engineering models for auditory signal processing. Jim’s pioneering work in psychoacoustics is particularly notable. Jim studied and established perceptual difference limens (DL) in various attributes of the speech sound, e.g., formant frequency, amplitude, bandwidth and fundamental frequency. The results led to fundamental understanding of human’s auditory sensitivity to speech. In a similar vein, Jim also led the theoretical and experimental development of a complete, physiologically based model of vocal excitation for speech production. These models (i.e. speech production and perception), and the associated understanding of the physiological processes, are what differentiate speech communications studies from the pure mathematical formalism which defines the communication process between machines. Jim’s studies gave speech communications its real meaning. Jim is an engineer and was taught to understand the importance of mathematical formalism, even though his major interest is in speech as being produced and heard by human. Realizing the potential in the applications of communication and information theory to better understanding of the human communication process, Jim developed a model which helped analyze the theoretical capacity limits of a ‘human’ communication channel and lead to metrics for measuring attributes of the human channel. Jim’s insights put speech communications on a ‘tractable’ path. Discussions on speech communications in telephony are incomplete without talking about transmission of the speech signals over the telephone network. Jim Flanagan’s contribution in speech transmission is unparalleled. He was the inventor of the formant vocoder and the phase vocoder which have greatly influenced the design of modem speech coding systems for toll transmissions, voice mail systems, telephone answering machines and the recent cellular systems. Jim was also instrumental in the development of the ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) coding scheme which was adopted by ITU (formerly CCITT) as an international standard for digital voice transmission. He has also led research on acoustic signal processing, and in particular, efforts which have led to the development of autodirective microphone arrays for teleconferencing. Jim’s work turned theoretical understanding into innovations with real impact, as attested by over 45 patents.
2
Tribute to James L. Flanagan
Jim’s leadership at Bell Labs (1957-1990) nurtured a variety of world-class innovations including linear predictive coding and coded excitation (Atall, subband coding (Crochiere), speech recognition based on hidden Markov models (Juang, Levinson, Rabiner and Sondhi), and speaker verification systems (Rosenberg). His managerial excellence, both at Bell Laboratories and more recently at Rutgers University, has guided the research of several hundred colleagues, many of whom have become leaders in speech processing as well as in closely aligned fields. Jim has also significantly contributed to international research collaboration and education. He has visited many countries to present instructive lectures and has accepted a large number of foreign researchers to his laboratory and university. The researchers who learned directly or indirectly from him are now playing important roles in scientific and engineering activities covering a great part of the world. Jim Flanagan’s research has been recognized by a wide range of technical, commercial, governmental and academic organizations, and has led to his receiving the following honors: 1958 1969 1970 1976 1977 1978 1983 1985 1986 1986 1992
Fellow, Acoustical Society of America Fellow, IEEE Achievement Award, IEEE, Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing Society Society Award, IEEE, Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing Society Distinguished Service Award, in Science, American Speech and Hearing Association Member, National Academy of Engineering Member, National Academy of Science L.M. Ericsson International Prize for Telecommunications Gold Medal, Acoustical Society of America Edison Medal, IEEE Marconi Award
We not only identify with Jim’s accomplishments but enjoy the pride in having a prominent recognized by the society. Congratulations again, Jim.
colleague
who is highly
B.H. Juang, C. Sorin, S. Furui and L. Pols
Acknowledgements We would like to thank Larry Rabiner for his help in writing this tribute and in providing the compiled list of honors that Jim Flanagan has received so far.