Lawrence R. Rabiner (born 28 September 1943) is an

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

working in the fields of

digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are ...

and

speech processing Speech processing is the study of speech signals and the processing methods of signals. The signals are usually processed in a digital representation, so speech processing can be regarded as a special case of digital signal processing, applied t ...

; in particular in digital signal processing for

automatic 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 m ...

. He has worked on systems for

AT&T Corporation AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...

for speech recognition. He holds a joint academic appointment between

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

and the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

Education

* B.S. in electrical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964 * M.S. in electrical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964 * Ph.D. in electrical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1967

Research interests

Digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are ...

Speech processing Speech processing is the study of speech signals and the processing methods of signals. The signals are usually processed in a digital representation, so speech processing can be regarded as a special case of digital signal processing, applied t ...

* Multimodal user interfaces * Multimedia communications * Shared collaboration systems for tele-collaboration

Life

Rabiner was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943. During his studies at MIT, he participated in the cooperative program at

AT&T Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

, during which he worked on digital circuit design and binaural hearing. After obtaining his PhD in 1967, he joined

' research division in Murray Hill, NJ as a member of technical staff. He was promoted to supervisor in 1972, department head in 1985, director in 1990, and functional vice-president in 1995. He joined the newly created AT&T Labs - Research in 1996 as director of the Speech and Image Processing Services Research Laboratory. He was promoted vice-president of Research in 1998, succeeding

Sandy Fraser Alexander G. Fraser (8 June 1937 – 13 June 2022), also known as A. G. Fraser and Sandy Fraser, was a noted British- American computer scientist. Fraser received his B.Sc. degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Bristol University in 1958, ...

, where he managed broad programs in communication, computing, and information sciences. He retired from AT&T in 2002 and joined the department of electrical engineering at

, with a joint appointment at the

. Rabiner pioneered a range of novel algorithms for digital filtering and digital spectrum analysis. The most well known of these algorithms are the Chirp z-Transform method (CZT) of spectral analysis, a range of optimal FIR (finite impulse response) digital filter design methods based on linear programming and Chebyshev approximation methods, and a class of decimation/interpolation methods for digital sampling rate conversion. In the area of speech processing, Rabiner has made contributions to the fields of pitch detection, speech synthesis and speech recognition. Rabiner built one of the first digital speech synthesizers that was able to convert arbitrary text to intelligible speech. In the area of speech recognition, Rabiner was a major contributor to the creation of the statistical method of representing speech that is known as

Hidden Markov model A hidden Markov model (HMM) is a statistical Markov model in which the system being modeled is assumed to be a Markov process — call it X — with unobservable ("''hidden''") states. As part of the definition, HMM requires that there be an ob ...

ing (HMM). Rabiner was the first to publish the scaling algorithm for the Forward-Backward method of training of HMM recognizers. His research showed how to successfully implement an HMM system based on either discrete or continuous density parameter distributions. His tutorial paper on HMM is highly cited. Rabiner's research resulted in a series of speech recognition systems that went into deployment by AT&T to enable automation of a range of ‘operator services’ that previously had been carried out using live operators. One such system, called the Voice Recognition Call Processing (VRCP) system, automated a small vocabulary recognition system (5 active words) with word spotting and barge-in capability. It resulted in savings of several hundred millions of dollars annually for AT&T.

Awards and recognitions

* Acoustical Society of America Fellow, 1970 * Paper Award of

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 operation ...

Group on Audio and Electroacoustics, 1971 *

Eta Kappa Nu Eta Kappa Nu () or IEEE-HKN is the international honor society of the Computer Science and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). "The organization promotes excellence in the profession and in education through an emphasis ...

Outstanding Young Electrical Engineer Award – Honorable Mention, 1972 * ASA Biennial Award, 1974 * IEEE Fellow, 1976 * IEEE ASSP Achievement Award, 1978 *

IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award 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 operation ...

, 1980 (with

Ronald Schafer Ronald W. Schafer (born February 17, 1938) is an electrical engineer notable for his contributions to digital signal processing. After receiving his Ph.D. degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968, he joined the Acoustics Research ...

) * IEEE ASSP Society Award, 1980 * Election to

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

, 1983 * IEEE Centennial Award, 1984 * AT&T Bell Laboratories Fellow, 1989 * Election to

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, 1990 * Speech Processing Magazine Award of the IEEE, 1994 * AT&T Patent Award, 1995 * AT&T Fellow Award, 1996 * IEEE Millennium Medal, 1999 * IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal, 1999

Recent journal articles

* Digital Speech Processing, B. H. Juang, M. M. Sondhi, and L. R. Rabiner, Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology, Third Edition, Volume 4, pp. 485–500, 2002. * Speech and Language Processing for Next-Millennium Communications Services, R. V. Cox, C. A. Kamm, L. R. Rabiner, J. Schroeter, and J. G. Wilpon, Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 88, No. 8, pp. 1314–1337, August 2000 * Image and Video Coding-Emerging Standards and Beyond, B. G. Haskell, P. G. Howard, Y. A. LeCun?, A. Puri, J. Ostermann, M.R. Civanlar, L. R. Rabiner, L. Bottou, and P. Haffner, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, Vol. 8, No. 7, pp. 814–837, November 1998 * On the Applications of Multimedia Processing to Communications, R. V. Cox, B. G. Haskell, Y. LeCun?, B. Shahraray, and L. R. Rabiner, IEEE Proceedings Vol. 86, No. 5, pp. 755–824, May 1998 * The Role of Speech Processing in Human-Computer Intelligent Communication, C. A. Kamm, M. Walker, and L. R. Rabiner, Speech Communication, Vol. 23, pp. 263–278, 1997

References

External links

Lawrence Rabiner's home page at Rutgers

Lawrence Rabiner's home page at UCSB
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabiner, Lawrence American electrical engineers 1943 births Living people Fellow Members of the IEEE Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences MIT School of Engineering alumni Rutgers University faculty 20th-century American engineers 21st-century American engineers IEEE Centennial Medal laureates Scientists at Bell Labs Speech processing researchers Fellows of the Acoustical Society of America