Alexander Waibel

Alexander Waibel is a distinguished professor of Computer Science at both Carnegie Mellon University and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where he directs the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies. Renowned for his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence, machine learning, multimodal interfaces, and speech translation systems, Waibel developed early neural network-based systems, including the Time Delay Neural Network (TDNN), which was the first convolutional neural network. His innovations have led to the creation of various multimodal interfaces and cross-lingual communication systems, such as the first consecutive and simultaneous speech translation systems. Waibel has founded over ten companies to translate academic research into practical applications, including Jibbigo, the first mobile speech translator. With approximately 1,000 publications and numerous awards, he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Germany and a Fellow of the IEEE, holding degrees from MIT and CMU.