Calendar Archive, March 2009

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Washington Section Administrative Committee Meeting

Time: 6:45 pm
Place: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC
Directions: Use the 12th Street entrance. The AAAS building is one block from Metro Center (Red, Orange and Blue lines).
Street parking is free after 6:30 pm (no parking 4:00-6:30 pm). There is a pay parking lot at the intersection of 9th St. and New York Ave., and an underground parking garage at 14th St. and New York Ave.
See map at www.aaas.org/dcwest.pdf.
More Info: All interested IEEE members are welcome.
Contact: RSVP to Monica Taysing-Lara at m.taysinglara@ieee.org or 202-725-2225.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Future of Transit on Columbia Pike: The Pike Transit Initiative

Sponsor: Land Transportation Committee of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society and American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Speaker: Christopher Zimmerman, Arlington County Board Member; and Stephen Del Guidice, Chief, Arlington Transit Bureau
Time: Lunch 11:30 am, presentation 12:00 noon
Place: American Public Transportation Association, 11th Floor Conference Room, 1666 K Street NW, Washington, DC
Directions: Take the Metro to Farragut North station (Red Line, use K Street exit) or Farragut West station (Orange and Blue lines, use 17th Street exit).
More Info: See Diamond story below. The National Capital Land Transportation Committee (LTC) holds monthly lunch meetings from September though June. The LTC is jointly sponsored by the ASME Rail Transportation Division and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society of the Washington and Northern Virginia Sections. All interested persons are invited. Membership in ASME or IEEE is not required.
Cost: $20 cash at the door for lunch.
Contact: Please RSVP by 4:00 pm Friday, March 6 to Karl Berger at karl.berger@dcm-va.com or 703-803-7917, or Ken Briers at ken.briers@parsons.com or 202-775-3397.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Northern Virginia Section Administrative Committee Meeting

Time: Dinner 6:00, business meeting 7:00-8:00 pm
Place: Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway, Conference Room 8, Fairfax, VA
Directions: See www.fairfaxcounty.gov/maps/locatMap.htm. From I-495, take I-66 West to Exit 55B Fairfax County Pkwy North (Route 7100). Turn right onto Fair Lakes Pkwy East. Turn right at light onto Monument Dr. Turn right at light onto Government Center Pkwy. The Government Center is on the left.
More Info: All interested IEEE members are invited to attend.
Contact: Please use the new IEEE vTools application to preregister at http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/463 or contact Jeff Poston at poston@ieee.org or 703-983-7020.

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Life Members' War Stories

Sponsor: Life Members
Time: 12:00 noon
Place: Dolley Madison Library, 1244 Oak Ridge Ave, McLean, VA
Directions: Take Exit 46 from the Beltway and proceed on Route 123 North to McLean, VA, about 2 miles. After crossing Old Dominion Dr., turn left at the next street, Ingleside Ave., and then left on Oak Ridge Ave. The library is on the left.
More Info: A light lunch will be served.
Contact: Dave Booth at 540 364-1350 or 703 346-3540, or dbooth@ieee.org.

Friday, March 13, 2009
Image and Video Quality Assessment: The Truth About PSNR

Sponsor: Signal Processing Society (Northern Virginia Chapter)
Speaker: Dr. Amy Reibman, AT&T Bell Labs
Time: 3:30 pm
Place: University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Room E316, Charlottesville, VA
More Info: See Diamond story below.
Contact: Jeff Poston at poston@ieee.org

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Art of Consulting, Part 2: Designing Your Own Career

Sponsor: National Capital Area Consultants' Network
Speaker: Dr. Bob Miller, Trace Systems, Inc.
Time: 6:00-8:30 pm
Place: Reston Community Center Lake Anne, 1609-A Washington Plaza, Reston, VA
Directions: From Route I-495, take Route 7 West (Leesburg Pike). Turn left on Baron Cameron Avenue (Route 606), left onto Village Road, left onto North Shore Drive, and right at the Lake Anne Village Center entrance. The Community Center is at the plaza entrance opposite Millennium Bank. Free parking.
See www.restoncommunitycenter.com/about_location.shtml (scroll to Lake Anne directions).
More Info: See Diamond story below. All IEEE members, student members, and guests are welcome. Sandwiches will be served.
Cost: $20 cash at the door.
Contact: Please register by 12:00 noon on March 16 at http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/407. For additional information about the workshop, contact Monica Mallini at m.a.mallini@ieee.org.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Mindmapping and Visual Outlining for Fame and Fortune

Sponsor: Professional Communication Society
Speaker: Jesse Alexander
Time: 6:30 pm
Place: The Front Page, 4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA
Directions: The restaurant is one block from Ballston Metro Station (Orange line).
More Info: See Diamond Story below.
Cost: $25 for PCS members, $35 for non-members (cash at the door)
Contact: Preregister by noon on Tuesday, March 17 at http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/461. For information, contact Hugh Owen at hugh.owen@ieee.org.

Thursday, March 19, 2009
Modular High Capacity Uninterruptible Power Systems

Sponsors: Power Engineering Society, Industry Applications Society
Speaker: Kevin McGaughey, Capitol Power Systems
Time: 6:00-8:00 pm
Place: Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute, 4300 Wilson Blvd., Suite 750, Arlington, VA
Directions: From Ballston Metro Station (Orange line), turn right at top of escalator then left on the street. Proceed two blocks toward Macy's, turn right and walk one block to Ballston Point at the intersection of Wilson Blvd. and Glebe Rd. If driving, see www.ari.vt.edu/ari_directions.html. There is a parking garage in the building with a $1 charge for 3 hours. After 6:00 pm, there is limited free street parking.
More Info: A light dinner buffet will be served, followed by the program. All interested persons are invited.
Cost: Free for IEEE members; $10 for non-members.
Contact: Rich Phillips at rdphillips@ekfox.com or 800-520-4771 ext. 113.

Thursday, March 19, 2009
The History of Electrical Technology in 1884

Sponsor: Control Systems Society (Northern Virginia Chapter), DeVry IEEE Student Branch
Speaker: Prof. Dan Cross-Cole, DeVry University
Time: 6:00 pm
Place: DeVry University, 2450 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA
More Info: IEEE members and guests are invited to this presentation on electrical technology in 1884 in honor of the 125th Anniversary of the founding of IEEE. Free pizza and soft drinks.
Contact: Dan Cross-Cole dcrosscole@devry.edu or Seddik Benhamida at sbenhamida@devry.edu.

Monday, March 23, 2009
Wearable Sensors and Robotic Control Systems

Sponsor: Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
Cosponsors: Robotics and Automation Society, Computer Society, Communications Society (Washington chapter), Control Systems Society (Northern Virginia, Washington chapters), Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, IEEE Technology Management Council, Women in Engineering, and the American Society for Quality Section 509 Biomed/Biotech SIG
Speaker: Anna Skinner, Biomedical Engineer, AnthroTronix, Inc.
Time: Networking & Refreshments 6:45 pm, presentation 7:00 pm
Place: MITRE Corp., Building 2, Conference Room 1N100, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA
Directions: See www.mitre.org/about/locations/mitre2_map.html.
More Info: Anna Skinner will discuss her work at AnthroTronix, Inc., a human factors engineering firm with core technology in the area of advanced interface technology for wearable computers and robotic control systems. AnthroTronix is a leader in development of "gestural" (movement-based) interfaces that use wearable sensors to control electronic devices via gestures or body movements. The company's technology is used in the defense, space, and healthcare rehabilitation industries.
Contact: Please RSVP by COB on March 20 to Debi Siering at siering@ieee.org.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
An Introduction to the GeoSAR X-band/P-band Single Pass IFSAR Mapping Instrument

Sponsor: Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society
Speaker: James J. Reis, GeoSAR Chief Scientist, Fugro Earthdata International
Time: Light refreshments and networking 2:30 pm, presentation 3:00 pm
Place: Fugro Earthdata International, 7320 Executive Way, Frederick, MD
Directions: See http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/no_virginia/grss.
More Info: See Diamond story below. A brief tour of the Fugro International facilities will follow the presentation.
Contact: James C. Tilton at j.tilton@ieee.org.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Building Survivable Systems in Engineering and Business Systems

NEW DATE! This meeting was originally scheduled for Feb. 24.
Sponsors: Computer Society, Information Theory Society, Reliability Society, American Society for Quality (ASQ) Section 509 Software SIG, Society for Software Quality (SSQ)
Speaker: Jidé B. Odubiyi, Ph.D.
Time: 6:30 pm
Place: Video teleconference with sites in McLean and Silver Spring. Addresses are provided at the registration link below.
More Info: See Diamond story below. All interested IEEE members and guests are invited to attend. Pizza and soda will be served.
Cost: Free
Contact: Advance registration is required to enter the facilities. Please register online at www.asq509.org/ht/d/sp/i/2499/pid/2499. If your plans change, please email ankums@mitre.org to cancel your reservation.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Nonlinear Statistical Modeling of Speech

Sponsor: Signal Processing Society (Northern Virginia Chapter)
Speaker: Joseph Picone, Ph.D., Mississippi State University
Time: Refreshments 6:30 pm; presentation 7:00 pm
Place: MITRE Corp., Building 2, Conference Room 1N100, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA
Directions: See www.mitre.org/about/locations/mitre2_map.html.
More Info: See Diamond story below. Free pizza and soda.
Contact: RSVPs to Jeff Poston at poston@ieee.org by March 23 are appreciated, but walk-ins are welcome.

Saturday, March 28, 2009
IEEE WIE Bowling Event

Sponsor: Women in Engineering
Time: 2:00 pm
Place: AMF Bowling Lanes, 6228A N. Kings Hwy., Alexandria, VA
Directions: See www.amf.com/alexandrialanes/Mapping/maps_directions.amfx.
More Info: If you need some fun, come bowling with us. It just feels good to knock stuff down. Friends and family are welcome!
Cost: IEEE members $10, non-IEEE members $14.25.
Contact: If interested, please contact Katie Schaffold at katie.schaffold@ieee.org by March 22. Payments must be received by March 25.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Software Defined Radios: The Semi-Analog Way

Sponsor: Microwave Theory and Techniques Society
Cosponsors: Communications Society (Northern Virginia and Washington chapters), Signal Processing Society (Northern Virginia and Washington chapters)
Speaker: Dr. Ramesh Harjani, Professor, University of Minnesota, and Visiting Professor, Army Research Lab., Adelphi, MD
Time: Optional dinner 6:00 pm (see below), lecture 7:00 pm
Place: MITRE Corp., Building 2, Conference Room 1N100, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA
Directions: See www.mitre.org/about/locations/mitre2_map.html.
More Info: Our wireless communication bandwidth requirements continue to increase. However, the available wireless spectrum is either pre-allocated or not available at all times and locations. The problem is caused primarily by inefficient legacy spectrum allocation policies. To deal with this challenge, cognitive radios utilize dynamically reconfigurable hardware and software to accommodate different frequencies, modulation formats, network access, cryptography, etc. In this talk, Dr. Harjani will focus on analog/RF circuit implementation issues necessary to design software defined radios that meet these requirements. For biographical information, see http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/wash_nova/mtt.
Cost: Lecture free (no RSVP needed); $15 for dinner (reservation required, cash payment at the door).
Contact: Please RSVP for dinner only by COB Thursday, March 26 to Roger Kaul at r.kaul@ieee.org or 301-394-4775.

Diamond Stories

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Future of Transit on Columbia Pike: The Pike Transit Initiative

The Pike Transit Initiative, sponsored by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), aims to develop a new high-capacity and environmentally friendly transit service along Columbia Pike from the Pentagon and Pentagon City area to Baileys Crossroads. In the spring of 2006, the Arlington County Board and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors formally adopted the Modified Streetcar Alternative as the preferred alternative.

In 2005, The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) completed the technical analysis of transit alternatives for Columbia Pike. The final document details the alternatives considered, technical evaluation process, public and stakeholder input, and conclusions of the study.

In the spring of 2006, the Arlington County Board and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors formally adopted the Modified Streetcar Alternative as the preferred alternative emerging from the Alternatives Analysis (AA) process. This opens the way for WMATA, Arlington County, and Fairfax County staff to refine the project plan and develop concepts for station stops and facilities, assess right-of-way and utilities effects, and prepare a detailed financial plan.

Information gathered through these tasks will complete required environmental documentation and allow the project team and the Columbia Pike community to weigh important questions regarding project funding and financing. For more information, visit www.PikeTransit.com.

Christopher Zimmerman has been a resident of Arlington County since 1979. He was first elected to the Arlington County Board in 1996 and re-elected in 1998, 2002, and 2006. He served as Chairman in 1998, 2002 and 2006, and as Vice Chairman in 1997, 2001, and 2005. Zimmerman is one of Virginia's two members on the WMATA Board of Directors, which he currently chairs.

A former civic association president and planning commissioner, Zimmerman has been an advocate of the County's legacy of transit-oriented development and managed growth, and a proponent of the principles of the New Urbanism. During his tenure on the Arlington County Board, he has emphasized traffic calming and neighborhood conservation, transportation infrastructure, affordable housing, schools and programs for youth, economic development, public safety, protecting open space, and enhancing recreational facilities. He has worked to improve transit service and to make Arlington more pedestrian-friendly. He has devoted much of his effort to ensuring the availability of affordable housing in the county. Regionally, Zimmerman has worked to promote the concept of smart growth as the Washington area seeks to cope with the problems of traffic congestion and environmental pollution.

In 2004 Mr. Zimmerman became the first recipient of the Livable Communities Leadership Award from the Washington Regional Network for Livable Communities. He has also been honored by the Virginia Transit Association for Outstanding Contribution by a Public Official (2003), and by the Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation as a Champion of Sensible Transportation (2001).

Prior to his service on the Arlington County Board, Zimmerman was Chief Economist and Committee Director for Federal Budget and Taxation at the National Conference of State Legislatures. He holds an M.A. in economics from the University of Maryland and a B.S. in political science and economics from the American University.

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Friday, March 13, 2009
Image and Video Quality Assessment: The Truth About PSNR

Digital image processing is everywhere today: digital photography, digital radiology, digital cinema, video conferencing, and streaming video on the web. An accurate method to compare the quality of images and video is necessary so that algorithms can be optimized, products can be benchmarked, video outages can be detected, and service-level agreements can be written. Unfortunately, the complexity of the human visual system makes accurate assessment challenging.

Peak Signal-to-Noise ratio (PSNR) (or equivalently mean-squared error (MSE)) is a simple measure of image quality based on average error. Even in the early days of digital image processing in the 1960's, it was known that PSNR was a poor predictor of image quality. This has spurred decades of research into improved methods of image quality assessment. Despite its drawbacks, however, PSNR is still heavily reported. Furthermore, researchers have also tried to incorporate PSNR into their optimization algorithms - can this actually provide gains?

This talk provides a broad overview of objective methods for image and video quality assessment. We give visual examples and describe scenarios in which PSNR is misleading, inappropriate, or completely inapplicable. We also describe scenarios in which PSNR has proved very effective, where dramatic visual improvements in image quality can be achieved with its use. Finally, we present a sampling of alternate approaches to characterize image and video quality, including our recent contributions on measuring video quality inside the network.

Amy R. Reibman received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Duke University in 1983, 1984, and 1987, respectively. From 1988 to 1991, she was an Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. In 1991, she joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, and became a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in 1995. She is currently a Lead Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Labs-Research, exploring video quality assessment for network transport.

In the area of video transport over networks, her studies include ATM, wireless networks (indoor and EGPRS), and the Internet, considering error resilience and alternative source coding algorithms (scalable and multiple description video coding). She was an early pioneer in exploring ways that the video compression system and the network can interact so as to obtain overall better video quality. In recent years, she has focused on the critical problem of measuring and quantifying video quality. She is a leading innovator in measuring video quality from the vantage point of inside the network. She has also considered quality metrics for compressed video and for super-resolution image enhancement.

Dr. Reibman is co-editor, Video Transport Over Networks (Marcel Dekker, Inc.), with Ming-Ting Sun, 2000. She has written tutorial articles for the Proceedings of the IEEE, "VBR Video Transport Over Networks and Multiple Description Video Coding for Video Delivery." She has published over 100 journal and conference papers in the field of video signal processing and holds 14 U.S. patents.

Dr. Reibman was elected Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to video transport over networks in 2005. In 1998, she won the IEEE Communications Society Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award, for the paper "Joint Selection of Source and Channel Rate for VBR Video Transmission Under ATM Policing Constraints," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, August 1997, with C.-Y. Hsu, and A. Ortega. She was Technical Co-Chair, IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) (2002); Technical Co-Chair, First IEEE Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (1997); Technical Program Chair, 6th International Workshop on Packet Video (1994); and Tutorial Speaker, ICIP (1997).

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Art of Consulting, Part 2: Designing Your Own Career

The National Capital Area Consultants Network is pleased to present an encore of a series that was very popular a few years ago, The Art of Consulting. Developed by local members, the series combines presentations with a roundtable discussion forum to help you determine how consulting fits into your career plan in the current economic climate. If you've been thinking about becoming a consultant, or thinking that you might have to, here's something you won't want to miss. We'll show you what works, what doesn't work, and what it takes to make it in business.

The Art of Consulting series is designed for IEEE members and other engineers who practice consulting, are thinking about consulting, or want to take charge of their careers. Sessions will cover topics such as running a consulting business, marketing, getting paid, contracts, and effective communication. Attendees can expect to hear fresh ideas and proven techniques from experienced consultants. They will find a hospitable, informal atmosphere in which to compare notes with others to find out what works and what doesn't - from people who know.

In the second installment, Designing Your Own Career, you'll consider the nitty-gritty details of consulting. What services should you offer? How much should you charge? (Is it always the same rate?) What business form (sole proprietorship, S-corporation, etc.) should you set up? How do you actually do that? In the roundtable discussions, experienced consultants will describe the choices they made, the reasons why, and how they worked out. In the process, we’ll also talk about how you can determine your target market, for example, getting commercial business vs. bidding on government contracts.

Bob Miller, the workshop leader, owns Trace Systems, Inc., which provides custom software and electronic design services. Dr. Miller is experienced in bringing high tech products to high volume production. He managed the group at Zenith that first put Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filters into color televisions for the first time. These devices are now mass produced worldwide, in quantities of over 50 million per year. He has a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He received three George Westinghouse Innovation Awards for commercial product concepts. He has six patents, over 25 publications, and is the principal author of Acoustic Charge Transport, published by Artech House in 1992. Visit his website at www.tracesystemsinc.com.

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Mindmapping and Visual Outlining for Fame and Fortune

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
An Introduction to the GeoSAR X-band/P-band Single Pass IFSAR Mapping Instrument

GeoSAR is dual frequency (X-band and P-band) single pass interferometric mapping radar designed to map both top and bottom of vegetation canopies. GeoSAR was developed from 1998-2003 as a joint effort of NASA JPL and EarthData under sponsorship of DARPA and NGA. The system is flown on a G-II aircraft and simultaneously maps 10-12 km swaths on both sides of the aircraft to generate high quality wide area Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and imagery at both X-band and P-band. The system has been augmented with a nadir pointing lidar profiler system to generate highly accurate control points that are used in generating large area mosaics. Usage examples from tropical jungles and agricultural sites will be presented.

James Reis is the Chief Scientist for the GeoSAR Mapping System. Previously, he was the General Manager for EarthData during GeoSAR's development from preliminary design, implementation, and commercial operation. Prior to joining EarthData, Reis spent 27 years with Northrop Grumman in the Research and Technology Center for advanced concepts. Reis holds a B.A. in physics, an M.S. in electrical engineering, and an M.S. in technology management. He has 13 patents in signal processing, pattern recognition, and holographic optical storage. He is a 29-year member of IEEE.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Building Survivable Systems in Engineering and Business Systems

A survivable system is one that will deliver essential services on time; even when significant elements of the system become disabled. A survivable system's quality attributes include fault tolerance, performance, availability, reliability, security and affordability. One of the most effective means for building these systems is to employ tools that aid in investigating a variety of design and operational scenarios and selecting the most viable option. Organizations may fail to meet their mission objectives due to their inability to successfully innovate three critical change drivers essential to their survival –- product, process, and business systems. Unless an organization innovates, it cannot adapt to changes in its environment and consequently, it cannot survive.

Dr. Odubiyi will present technological approaches for using these change drivers to achieve an organization's mission objectives. He will discuss the principles and applications of finite element modeling for product innovation; modeling and simulation science for process innovation; and complex and nonlinear systems theory and multi-agent technology for business process innovation. Employing real life examples, he will present measures of system survivability for engineering structures (automobile and airplanes); telecommunication networks, computer and network security; and software engineering.

Jidé B. Odubiyi is president and CTO of SEGMA, LLC. He has over 30 years of industrial and research experience in researching and generating products from concepts to market with a current focus on developing business intelligence software for corporate governance, computer and network security, and intelligent tutoring systems. He serves as a research consultant on intelligent systems engineering and grid computing for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

He has served as an associate professor of computer science at Bowie State University; principal AI researcher and R&D manager at British Telecom North America Concert Global Communications, principal engineer and AI technologist at Lockheed Martin Space Mission Systems, product design engineer at Boeing Company and Ford Motor Company; and member of the technical staff at MITRE Corp. and Battelle Columbus Laboratories.

Dr. Odubiyi received his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in applied management and decision sciences from Walden University. Dr. Odubiyi has authored over 40 articles and two books, Blueprint for a Crooked House, about mergers and acquisitions, and Building Survivable Systems. He is a member of AAAI, ACM and IEEE.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Nonlinear Statistical Modeling of Speech

Statistical or machine-learning techniques, such as Hidden Markov models and Gaussian mixture models, have dominated the signal processing and pattern recognition literature for the past 25 years. However, such approaches are prone to over-fitting and have problems with generalization. For example, delivering high performance on previously unseen noise conditions remains an elusive goal.

In this presentation, we will review our recent work on applying principles of nonlinear statistical modeling to acoustic modeling in speech recognition. Our goal is to improve recognition performance in noisy environments. We will discuss the use of an extended feature vector containing features based on correlation dimension, correlation entropy and Lyapunov exponents. We will also introduce a new acoustic model based on a probabilistic mixture of autoregressive models.

Experimental results are presented on the Aurora IV large vocabulary speech recognition task in which audio data from a variety of actual noise conditions were digitally added to the standard Wall Street Journal 5K closed-vocabulary task. We will show modest gains in performance can be achieved under matched conditions, but performance degraded under mismatched training conditions.

Joseph Picone is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Mississippi State University. He recently completed a three-year sabbatical at the Department of Defense where he directed human language technology research and development.

His primary research interests are machine learning approaches to acoustic modeling in speech recognition. For over 25 years he has conducted research on many aspects of digital speech and signal processing. He has also been a long-term advocate of open source technology, delivering one of the first state-of-the-art open source speech recognition systems, and maintaining one of the more comprehensive web sites related to signal processing. His research group is known for producing many innovative educational materials that have increased access to the field.

Dr. Picone received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1983 from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has worked at Texas Instruments and AT& Bell Laboratories, including a two-year assignment in Japan establishing Texas Instruments' first international research center. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and has been active in several professional societies related to human language technology. He has authored numerous papers on the subject and holds eight patents.

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Updated 1/2/10