IEEE SPS Distinguished Industry Speaker Talk:

Intelligent Ear-Level Devices for Hearing Enhancement and Health and Wellness Monitoring

Event Sponsored and Organized By:

IEEE SPS Chapter of Santa Clara Valley

Co-sponsor:

IEEE EMBS Chapter of San Francisco

Solid-State Circuits Society(SSCS)

Circuits and Systems Society - Santa Clara Valley Chapter (CASS-SCV)

DIS Speaker:

Tao Zhang, Ph.D., Director of Signal Processing Research Department, Starkey Hearing Technologies

(6600 Washington Ave. S., Eden Prairie, MN 55344, USA)

Location: AMD 2485 Augustine Dr, Santa Clara, CA 95054 (Google Maps)

Venue Details: Please park in parking structure close to the building on Octavius Drive. First building after passing AMD and the road does a curve to the right. Please walk around AMD building to the Highway 101 side to the visitor entrance.

Schedule:

6:30pm-7:00pm: Registration, Food, Networking

7:00pm-8:00pm: Talk

8:00pm-8:30pm: Q&A and Networking

Cost:

FREE for IEEE members

Suggested donations to cover food and water (pay at door):

Non-IEEE: $5

Students (non-IEEE): $3

Online registration is recommended to guarantee seating

DIS Talk Abstract:

With resurgence of AI and machine learning, sensor miniaturization and increased wireless connectivity, ear-level devices are going through a major revolution transforming themselves from hearing devices into hearing enhancement and health and wellness monitoring devices. In this talk, we will present examples of such transformation in the areas of hearing enhancement, health and wellness monitoring and user experience. In the process, we will highlight how AI and machine learning, miniaturized sensors and wireless connectivity are enabling and accelerating the transformation. In addition, we will discuss practical challenges for the transformation today. Finally, we will provide an outlook on future directions and opportunities.

DIS Speaker Biography:

Tao Zhang received his B.S. degree in physics from Nanjing University, Nanjing, China in 1986, M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Peking University, Beijing, China in 1989, and Ph.D. degree in speech and hearing science from the Ohio-State University, Columbus, OH, USA in 1995. He joined the Advanced Research Department at Starkey Laboratories, Inc. as a Sr. Research Scientist in 2001, managed the DSP department from 2004 to 2008 and the Signal Processing Research Department from 2008 to 2014. Since 2014, he has been Director of the Signal Processing Research department at Starkey Hearing Technologies, a global leader in providing innovative hearing technologies. He has received many prestigious awards including Inventor of the Year Award, the Mount Rainier Best Research Team Award, the Most Valuable Idea Award, the Outstanding Technical Leadership Award and the Engineering Service Award at Starkey.

He is a senior member of IEEE and the Signal Processing Society and the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. He serves on the IEEE AASP Technical Committee, the industrial relationship committee and the IEEE ComSoc North America Region Board. He is an IEEE SPS Distinguished Industry Speaker and the Chair of IEEE Twin-cities Signal Processing and Communication Chapter.

His current research interests include audio, acoustic, speech signal processing and machine learning; multimodal signal processing and machine learning for hearing enhancement, health and wellness monitoring; psychoacoustics, room and ear canal acoustics; ultra-low power real-time embedded system design and device-phone-cloud ecosystem design. He has authored and coauthored 120+ presentations and publications, received 20+ approved patents and had additional 30+ patents pending.