Daniel Povey is a British researcher in the fields of

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

. After graduating from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

, he held research positions at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

and IBM from 2003 to 2012. He worked at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

as a nontenured associate research professor in the

Whiting School of Engineering The G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering is the engineering college of the Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. History Engineering at Johns Hopkins was originally created in 1913 as an educational p ...

prior to being fired in August 2019. Later in August 2019, after being fired by Johns Hopkins, Povey was slated to begin working for

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

, but he rejected Facebook's conditions of employment just days before he would have begun working for them. He was appointed the chief speech scientist at

Xiaomi Corporation (; ), commonly known as Xiaomi and registered as Xiaomi Inc., is a Chinese designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics and related software, home appliances, and household items. Behind Samsung, it is the second largest m ...

in November 2019, and continued to hold this position as of October 2020. He is also the primary architect and maintainer of Kaldi.

Johns Hopkins protest

By 8 May 2019, protestors at

had reached day 35 of a sit-in protest of campus militarization and local police agencies in Garland Hall, restricting access to all faculty and students. Garland Hall, Johns Hopkins University's main administrative hall, was the home location of servers Povey was expected to maintain. According to the university, Povey was denied permission into the building several times prior to 8 May. Led by Povey, counter-protestors entered the building and Povey began removing chains from the doors with a set of

bolt cutters A bolt cutter, sometimes called bolt cropper, is a tool used for cutting bolts, chains, padlocks, rebar and wire mesh. It typically has long handles and short blades, with compound hinges to maximize leverage and cutting force. A typical bolt c ...

. During the chain-removal process, cell-phone footage from the sit-in protestors features a melee between Povey and protestors, as they eventually carry Povey out of the building. Although Povey was adamant that he was the one being attacked in the videos, the university stated that a multitude of Povey's actions, such as leading a group of counter-protestors around campus at 12 am with a set of bolt cutters, threatened the safety of the students and university. Povey would be suspended and ultimately terminated from the university by August 2019.

Recognition

* Fellow,

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

(inducted 2023)

References

External links

* * Living people Alumni of the University of Cambridge Artificial intelligence researchers 21st-century British engineers Computer engineers Johns Hopkins University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-academic-bio-stub