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Nobutaka ITO (Ph.D.)

Research Scientist
Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Japan
nobutaka.itou.st(at)hco.ntt.co.jp

Visiting Industrial Fellow
University of Cambridge

Links

Short bio

Dr. Nobutaka Ito was born in Ibaraki, Japan in 1983. He received the B.E. degree in engineering from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan in 2007 and the M.E. and the Ph.D. degrees in information science and technology from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan in 2009 and 2012, respectively.

In 2012, he joined Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Kyoto, Japan as a Researcher, and in 2017 became a Research Scientist. Since March 2019, he has also been with the Department of Engineering, the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom as a Visiting Industrial Fellow. His research interests include source separation, speech enhancement, microphone arrays, array signal processing, acoustic signal processing, and image processing.

He will serve as a Member of IEEE Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing (AASP) Technical Committee (TC) from 2020, and has served as a Committee Member of the fourth/fifth/sixth/seventh community-based Signal Separation Evaluation Campaign (SiSEC2013/2015/2016/2018). He made a central contribution to NTT's automatic speech recognition (ASR) system that achieved the best performance in the CHiME-3 challenge, especially by developing the key frontend technique called a complex Gaussian mixture model (cGMM). He received the Best Paper Award of the 16th International Workshop on Acoustic Signal Enhancement (IWAENC) held in Tokyo in 2018, the fifth IEEE Signal Processing Society Japan Chapter Student Paper Award in 2011, JSIAM Transactions Best Paper Award of the Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2009, the 10th Itakura Prize Innovative Young Researcher Award of the Acoustical Society of Japan in 2015, Awaya Prize Young Researcher Award of the Acoustical Society of Japan in 2018, the Best Paper Award Honorable Mention of IEEE Automatic Speech Recognition and Understainding Workshop (ASRU 2015) held in Scottsdale in 2015, Senior Vice President's Award of Science and Core Technology Laboratory Group, NTT Corporation in 2017, Vice President's Award of Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation in 2014, 2016, and 2019, etc. Dr. Ito is a Member of IEEE and the Acoustical Society of Japan.

Research Interests

Source separation, speech enhancement, microphone arrays, array signal processing, acoustic signal processing, image processing

Background

Academic Activities

  1. Committee member, Community-Based Signal Separation Evaluation Campaign (SiSEC) (2013 -)
  2. Invited talk at EUSIPCO2017 (2017)
  3. Invited talk at EUSIPCO2015 (2015)
  4. Member of Local Organisation Committee, LVA/ICA2010 (2010)
  5. IEEE Kansai Section Young Professionals Affinity Group (2014 -   Committee member; 2017 -  Treasurer)
  6. Member of Technical Committee on Engineering Acoustics, the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE), Japan (2017 -)
  7. TPC member, the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) General Conference, Japan (2018)
  8. TPC member, the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) Society Conference, Japan (2017)
  9. Committee member, Young Researcher Exchange Meeting, the Acoustical Society of Japan Kansai Branch (2013 - 2016)
  10. Deputy chair at the Spring/Autumn Meeting of the Acoustical Society of Japan
  11. Reviewer of journals including IEEE Trans. ASLP, IEEE SPL, ASJ, and IEICE
  12. Reviewer of conferences including ICASSP, EUSIPCO, and IWAENC
  13. Committee member, Student and Young Researchers Forum, the Acoustical Society of Japan (2011 - 2013)

Awards

  1. IWAENC 2018 Best Paper Award (2018)
  2. IEEE Signal Processing Society Japan Chapter Student Paper Award (2011)
  3. Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Best Paper Award (2009)
  4. Itakura Prize Innovative Young Researcher Award, the Acoustical Society of Japan (2015)
  5. Awaya Prize Young Researcher Award, the Acoustical Society of Japan (2018)
  6. ASRU 2015 Best Paper Award Honorable Mention (2015)
  7. Best Student Presentation Award, the Acoustical Society of Japan (2011)
  8. Best Presentation Award, Young Researcher Exchange Meeting, the Acoustical Society of Japan Kansai Branch (2011)
  9. Senior Vice President's Award, Science and Core Technology Laboratory Group, NTT Corporation (2017)
  10. Vice President's Award, Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation (2019)
  11. Vice President's Award, Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation (2016)
  12. Vice President's Award, Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation (2014)

Intern Supervision

Qualifications

  1. TOEIC Institutional Program (IP) 990 (2012.11)
  2. Eiken Grade 1 (2013.3)

Membership in Academic Societies

Publications