Academic / Research Experiences

Professional Services

1)        I am currently Program manager of the Speech and Language Technology Program @ Emerging Research Lab of
           the School of Computer Engineering, NTU (2007 - current)

2)       Services:
            a. ACL 2009 Local Organizing Committe (Printing & Publication)
            b . Program Committee for 2008 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Security (CIS'08).
            c. Publication chair: ISCSLP 2006 Singapore. The 5^th International symposium on
                Chinese Spoken Language Processing.
            d. Session chair for ISCSLP 2006 (Dec 2006)
            e. Special session co-chair ICME 2004 Taiwan for Content Based Music Structure Analysis session

3)       Reviewer
               a) Evaluator for SRIID (Singapore Israel Industrial Research & Development Foundation www.siird.com)

                b) IEEE Trans Man System Cybernetics (2005, 2008), Eupsico (2008),
                    Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing (2008),
                    Journal of Signal Processing System (2008), ACM Multimedia Systems (2008),
                   IEEE Trans Neural Network (2007), IEEE Trans CAS-II, Signal Processing (2005)

Research Experiences

Below is a briief description of my past working/research experiences:

2003-current : (Nanyang Technological University, School of Computer Engineering, Singapore): Asst Professor

2000-2002 : Knowles Electronics
Speech Enhancement, Beam-forming, Automatic Echo Cancellation, Speech Quality Measure:
I was the R&D manager for the 4 elements digital microphone array in Knowles (Singapore office). The team’s objective was to improve the array’s performance, to reduce cost of production and carry out customisation for various users’ operations.

To improve performance, the team researched, implemented, and compared performance of published algorithms from available literatures/patents in the above listed technologies. In addition, the company carried out collaborative studies with various companies to examine the array’s performance and limitation under the following operations:
   - Quality of processed signal by the array in a open top convertible traveling at speed up to 180km/hr.
   - Voice recognition accuracy of processed signal for room and automotive environment.
   - The performance/limitations of the array used in a public area for speaker identification.

1999-2000 : Lernout and Hauspie (www.lhsl.com, currently known as ScanSoft)
Speech recognition :
Developed two core C++ modules, namely the feature extraction and Hidden Markov Model (HMM) response libraries, for the L&H Chinese speech recognition engine. In addition, I extended the L&H proprietary toolkit to include a HTK-type compiler module for acoustic model development.

1996-1999 : Kent Ridge Digital Labs (currently known as ASTAR I^2R)
Handwriting recognition/Pattern Recognition :
I was responsible for the transfer of Apple-ISS online and offline handwriting technologies to Kent Ridge Digital Labs (KRDL). The technology used for the handwriting recognition was an extension of HMM technologies used in the Apple Chinese Speech Recognition engine.

1995 : RIKEN (Rikagaku Kenkusho: Institute of Physics and Chemistry Research, Japan) as PostDoc
I continued my Phd research work of channel equalization problem. Notice that I did my post-doc before my convocation by a twist of fate. Riken is situated in Wako-shi, a small suburb just outside Tokyo.

1992-1995 : University of Edinburgh
Digital Signal Processing/ Channel Equalisation :
The PhD work I undertook was in the area of non-linear signal processing and channel equalisation. My supervisors were B.Mulgrew, P.M.Grant and S.Chen (now in Southhampton).

Research Interests

Digital Signal Processing
- Speech Research
  - Speech Enhancement
  - Speaker Turn Detection
  - Indexing
  - Clustering and Recognition
  - Microphone Array
Video Analysis
- Semantic Analysis
- Smart Room
  - Microphone Array
  - Multi-camera projects

Grant Awards

List of Accepted Funding/Proposals as (2003-current)
Principal Investigator & co-PI: Total Grant awarded: S$2.096 million

S/No	Duration	Description	Source of Funding
15	Dec 2008	JSPS fellowship to Tokyo Institute of Technology (Furui's Lab)	JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) Amount: S$4000
14	Sep 2008 – Mar 2010	Statistical Language Modeling for spoken document retrieval	I2R (AStar) ProjectID: M48020061 Amount: S$240K
13	Apr 2008- Oct 2008	Speech Channel Modelling & Classification	I2R (AStar) ProjectID: M48020050 Amount: S$108K
12	Mar 2008-Feb 2013	Advanced Research in Automatic Speech Recognition Awarded to: Li Haizhou & Chng Eng Siong	Temasek Lab (DSTA) ProjectID: M48680101 Amount: S$1 million
11	Jan 2008- Jun 2008	Robust Speech Signal Acquisition and Enhancement	I2R (AStar) ProjectID: M48020049 Amount: S$72,000
10	Dec 2007-Dec 2009	Micro-eBlock: A scalable microcomputer peripheral system for tertiary level micro-controller education Awarded to: Chng Eng Siong and Tan Su Lim	MOE & NTU &Renesas: Amount: S$313,572 ProjectID: M20440011
9	Jun-July 2007	Tan Chin Tuan Fellowship. Attachment to Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. (Jun-July 2007).	Tan Chin Tuan foundation Amount: S$6000
8	Jun 2007- Jun 2008	Speech Data Collection Technology for Robotic Dialog Application	I2R (AStar) ProjectID: M48020040 Amount: S$69,920
7	July 2006	ROAR’06 Award (01/06) 1 PhD studentship (Approx S$100K)	NTU
6	Feb 2007-Feb 2008	Supplementary Equipment Purchase: “Digital Signal Processing for Voice Enhancement Recognition and Search”	NTU ProjectID:: M52020057 Project Ref number: RG129/06 Amount: S$39,440
5	Mar 2006-Mar 2007	Development of Speaker turn library for I2R	I2R (AStar) A/C Number: M48020025 Amount: S$70,000
4	Sep 2004- July 2010	Digital Signal Processing for Voice Enhancement, Recognition & Search:	I2R (AStar) G/L Acct: 500360 Amount: S$138,000
3	Oct 2004-Mar 2005	Summarization of proceedings in a Smart Meeting Rooms for AStar Thematic Pilot project, “UWB & Pervasive Computing”: Awarded to Chng Eng Siong & Deepu Rajan	AStar: M47020015 (SERC grant number: 0421110063) Amount: S$21,000
2	Jun 2003- Jun 2004	Collaborative acoustic sensor for a smart meeting room application.	NTU, SCE CE-SUG-01/03 Amount: S$14,600
1	Dec 2003 – Jan 2004 (2 months)	Overseas Attachment programme to University of Southampton, Dept of ECE. Attachment to Prof Sheng Chen	AStar Amount: S$3600

List of Accepted Funding/Proposals as collaborator:

S/No

Date of Acceptance

Description

Source of Funding

April 2008- March 2010

PI: Ian McLoughlin

Title: Bionic voice - technology for voice replacement in post-laryngectomised patients (Exploratory development grant)

Collaborators: Paul Mok, Chee, Chng Eng Siong, Tan Su Lim

NRF (NMRC)
NMRC/EDG/0004/2007
Grant: S$180,700

Aug 2003-Nov 2004

PI: Yow Kin Choong

Title: “Promoting Mobile and Interactive Learning through the use of MMS over wireless LAN”

Collaborators: Chia Liang Tien, Clement (Assoc Prof); Adrian Leung Ho Yin; Foh Chuan Heng; Chng Eng Siong (Dr); Fu Cheng Peng, Franklin

Hewlett Packard Philanthropy Grant 2003

Grant: S$250,000

Achievements

S/N	Date	Description
8	May 2008	NIST 2008 SRE (Speaker recognition evaluation international benchmarking http://www.nist.gov/speech/tests/sre/2008/official_results/index.html 1st in the 2008 SRE competiton. We were part of the I4U team (I2R, and 4 Universities (USTC (China), NTU, Carnegie Mellon University, and UNSW) that was placed 1st for the 2008 SRE competition. For 2008 SRE evaluation task, 46 international teams took part in the 2008 NIST SRE benchmarking exercise.
7	Nov 2007	NIST 2007 Language Recognition Task http://www.nist.gov/speech/tests/lang/2007/lre07_eval_results_vFINAL/index.html 18 Teams participated in the 2007 NIST LRE benchmarking exercise. In the general language category, the I2R/NTU/ GeorgiaTech team achieved 5^th & 6th positions overall in Closed Test and 3^rd and 4^th positions overall in Open-test.
6	Apr 2007	NIST 2007 Speaker Diarization Task http://www.nist.gov/speech/tests/rt/2007/workshop/RT07-SPKR-v7.pdf 6 Teams participated in the 2007 NIST Speaker Diarization Task. In the core speaker diarization task using multiple distance microphone, the I2R/NTU team was 2^nd position.
5	Jan 2007	MOU with Renesas: In revamping the CPE206 courses, we worked with Renesas to develop a new prototype board for micro-controller course teaching. For this collaboration effort, Dr Tan Su Lim (SCE) and I secured a donation from Renesas (amount: S$400K out of the final amount of S$500K) to equip the Computer Engineering Laboratory. The MOU sealing this donation was signed with SCE on 9 Jan 2007
4	Jul 2006	CCC (Chinese Corpus Consortium) for CSLP 2006 SRE (Speaker Recognition Evaluation) international benchmarking. http://www.springerlink.com/content/m136333k4w205703/ 8 Teams participated in this first CCC Speaker Recognition Evaluation Task. The I2R/NTU team was placed 1^st in 2 categories.
3	Jun 2006	NIST 2006 SRE (Speaker Recognition Evaluation Task).http://www.nist.gov/speech/tests/spk/2006/ 39 Teams participated in the 2006 NIST SRE Task. The I2R/NTU team won 2nd places in 4 categories.
2	Dec 2005	NIST 2005 LRE (Language Recognition Evaluation)http://www.nist.gov/speech/tests/lang/2005/ 13 teams participated in this international evaluation task. The I2R/NTU team won overall 3^rd place.
1	Dec 2005	My PhD student Mr Wang JinJun won the MS student research fellowship 2005. The award was given to only 2 PhD students in Singapore. Mr Wang JinJun is currently working in NEC Research Centre, Silicon Valley, USA (as from Jan 2007-current).

updated: Oct 2008

1) Professional Services

2) Research Experiences

3) Research Interests

4) Grant Awards

5) Achievements

Professional Services

Research Experiences

Research Interests

Grant Awards

Achievements