Isabel Trancoso was recognized as the 2024 recipient of the International Speech Communication Association’s (ISCA) Medal for Scientific Achievement for her “pioneering contributions to speech coding and resources for the Portuguese language, and sustained service to the speech community.”
Dr. Alex Acero Senior Director and Distinguished Engineer and Siri Chief Scientist at Apple shared: “The International Speech Communication Association (ISCA), the largest professional association of speech scientists and engineers, awarded Prof. Isabel Trancoso the 2024 ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement for her pioneering contributions to speech coding, speech resources for the Portuguese language, and sustained service to ISCA and the speech community at large. The ISCA Medal, established in 1989, is ISCA’s highest honor and acknowledges extraordinary contributions to the field of speech communication, science and technology.” Dr. Acero is a leading expert on speech recognition, speech synthesis, language understanding, and dialog for Siri, Apple’s personal assistant for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Carplay, Macintosh, and HomePod.
This is Isabel Trancoso’s second distinction by ISCA, following her Special Service Medal in 2020 for her ‘sustained service for ISCA and the Speech Communication community in terms of leadership, outreach, and society recognition’. Currently a faculty member at CMU Portugal and a researcher at Técnico I INESC ID, Isabel Trancoso becomes the 30th honoree of this prestigious Medal for Scientific Achievement and the first Portuguese awardee.
Reflecting on her achievements, Isabel Trancoso expressed her gratitude, acknowledging the collaborative efforts of her colleagues and friends: “Some years ago, I received the ISCA Special Service Medal. After 16 years in the Boards of ESCA (the previous European Speech Communication Association) and ISCA, including being President of the association, I felt very grateful for the recognition of my efforts to build this community. But I never expected to get the ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement. Over the years I have successfully nominated many colleagues for this Medal and feel very humble. Whatever I have accomplished, I had a lot of help from colleagues and friends. It is a huge honor to be shared with many.”
Isabel Trancoso is a long-time CMU Portugal collaborator. She was recently PI of CMU Portugal Exploratory Project Privadia and researcher under the Large Scale Project MAIA, working closely with teams at Carnegie Mellon University. She is currently the supervisor of CMU Portugal Ph.D. student John Mendonça, and previously of Ph.D. students Wang Ling and Maria Correia.
The ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement is an annual distinction, established in 1989 that honors each year an individual who has made extraordinary contributions to the field of speech communication science and technology. The Award Ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Interspeech 2024 Conference in Kos, Greece between September 1-5, 2024.
Isabel Trancoso is a retired full professor at Instituto Superior Técnico, former President of the Scientific Council of INESC ID and founder of INESC ID Human Language Technologies Group. She has been a long-lasting collaborator of the CMU Portugal Program, as a project PI and researcher under CMU Portugal Exploratory research Project Privadia and Large Scale Project MAIA and as the supervisor of CMU Portugal Ph.D. students.
Isabel Trancoso served as president of ISCA between 2007 and 2011, and was appointed as a Fellow in 2014. She was recently nominated as the IEEE Fellow Committee Chair 2024.
More: Isabel Trancoso Bio.
Credits: Débora Rodrigues / Técnico
