James L. Flanagan

Dr. James L. Flanagan has profoundly influenced our understanding of how humans speak and hear. A pioneer in the areas of speech analysis, speech transmission and acoustics, his early research led to increased understanding of how the human ear processes signals, the development of advanced methods to assist hearing and improved voice communication systems. These achievements, which are in addition to his primary telecommunications work, include an electronic artificial larynx, playback recording techniques for the visually impaired, and automatic speech recognition to help the motor impaired.

Formerly director of the Information Principles Research Laboratory at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Dr. Flanagan was one of the first researchers to see the potential of speech as a means for human-machine communication.He has contributed to current techniques for automatic speech synthesis and recognition, and to signal coding algorithms for telecommunications and voicemail systems, including voicemail storage, voice dialing and call routing. He also created auto-directive microphone arrays for high-quality sound capture in teleconferencing and pioneered the use of digital computers for acoustic signal processing.

More recently, as vice president  for Research and director of the Center for Advanced Information Processing at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, he has been a leader in the development of global systems for human-computer interfaces that are actuated by speech and which incorporate sight and touch modalities.

An IEEE Life Fellow, Dr. Flanagan is a former president of the IEEE Signal Processing Society and received its Achievement Award. He is also the recipient of the IEEE Centennial Medal, the U.S. National Medal of Science and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.