Artificial intelligence
10 speech and voice AI researchers
These ten professionals have worked as speech recognition and voice AI researchers and scientists at technology companies and AI labs. A reader can learn how speech and voice AI researchers approach their work from people who have done it.
Professionals to explore
01—10Chenda Liao
LinkedInExperience: Principal Research Scientist - Speech Architect · Zoom
Principal Research Scientist and Speech Architect at Zoom since 2025; the headline describes work bridging voice and agentic AI. Earlier roles include Principal Applied Scientist Manager and Senior Research SDE for Speech at Azure AI at Microsoft (2021–2025), tech lead for intelligent speech interaction at Alibaba's DAMO Academy (2016–2021) and Senior Research Engineer at Nuance Communications (2013–2016).
Frank Torsten Bernd Seide
LinkedInExperience: Principal Researcher · Microsoft
Former Principal Researcher at Microsoft (2014–2020), after research manager roles there from 2006, and Research Scientist at Facebook since 2020. The profile describes a research leader in automatic speech recognition, machine translation and deep learning with a history of building industrial research teams and turning research into products.
J.P. Robichaud
LinkedInExperience: Principal Speech Scientist · Rev
Principal Speech Scientist at Rev since 2021, after Senior Speech Scientist there (2017–2021); the profile describes applied research put into production at scale, including speech engine architecture. Earlier he was Principal Applied Scientist and Senior Scientist at Microsoft (2013–2017) and Principal NLU Researcher at Nuance Communications (2011–2012).
Jie Pu
LinkedInExperience: Research Scientist · Zoom
Research Scientist at Zoom since 2022, working on multilingual speech recognition; the profile says the research focuses on compressing speech recognition networks to reach strong accuracy at the smallest model size and memory. Earlier roles include Research Associate in the speech group at the University of Cambridge (2021–2022) and Applied Scientist at Amazon (2020–2021).
Naoyuki Kanda
LinkedInExperience: Principal Researcher · Microsoft
Former Principal Researcher (2019–2023) and Principal Research Manager (2023–2024) at Microsoft, and AI Research Scientist at Meta since 2024. The profile describes more than 15 years of spoken language technology research covering speech recognition, text-to-speech, speaker diarization, speech separation and spoken dialogue systems, after research roles at Hitachi (2006–2019).
Pavel Golik
LinkedInExperience: Staff Research Scientist · Google DeepMind
Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind since 2024, after Senior Research Scientist at Google (2021–2024); the profile describes research in automatic speech recognition. Earlier he was Sr. Speech Scientist at AppTek.ai (2016–2021) and a research assistant at RWTH Aachen University (2011–2017).
Philipp Geiger
LinkedInExperience: Research Scientist - Speech Recognition · Microsoft
Research Scientist - Speech Recognition at Microsoft since 2023, after holding the same title at Nuance Communications (2019–2023). Earlier he was a scientific software developer at E-CAM (2018–2019) and a quantitative analyst at Erste Bank und Sparkasse (2015–2018).
Qiujia Li
LinkedInExperience: Staff Research Scientist · Google DeepMind
Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind since 2025, after Senior Research Scientist there (2024–2025) and Research Scientist at Google (2022–2024). The profile lists the Speech Team for Gemini Audio and research interests in automatic speech recognition, speech processing and machine learning, with a thesis on attention-based encoder-decoder models for speech processing.
Rohit Prabhavalkar
LinkedInExperience: Senior Staff Research Scientist · Google DeepMind
Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind since 2024, after research scientist roles at Google from 2013 and a stint at Facebook (2020–2021). The profile says he works in the speech group developing algorithms to improve speech recognition, with a particular focus on embedded speech recognition.
Xubo Liu
LinkedInExperience: Head of Speech · Stability AI
Former Head of Speech at Stability AI (2024–2025), where the profile describes leading generative AI work for speech research. He was a Research Scientist at Meta Superintelligence Labs in 2025 and again since 2026, where the profile says the focus is speech tokenization, full-duplex modelling and post-training.
Choose the right perspective
Match the person's focus to your problem: speech recognition accuracy and efficiency, on-device and embedded models, speaker diarization and multi-talker audio, or newer spoken language and full-duplex voice models. Also consider whether you need someone from a large research lab or someone who has shipped speech engines in a product company.
Questions to take into the conversation
- 01How do you evaluate a speech recognition model beyond overall word error rate?
- 02What trade-offs come with making a speech model small and fast enough to run on a device?
- 03How are spoken language models changing the way voice assistants handle conversation?
Reaching speech and voice AI researchers
How can I contact one of these speech and voice AI researchers?
Pick one of the 10 people on this page and choose "Book a paid call", or describe your project to find others. You offer a fee for a 15-minute call or a written answer, Instant Expert finds the person's work email and sends the invitation, and they decide whether to accept. The list covers 5 companies, including Zoom, Microsoft and Rev, based on profile data retrieved on October 9, 2026. Being listed here doesn't mean someone has agreed to take calls.
How much does it cost to reach speech and voice AI researchers?
You choose the offer, starting at $5 per person. It includes Instant Expert's 20% fee, so an offer that pays the person $100 costs you $125. You're charged only when the person books the call or sends the answer.
What if they don't reply?
You pay nothing. Instant Expert sends follow-up reminders, and if the person hasn't booked or answered within 7 days, the request expires and any hold on your card is released. You can invite several of the 10 people on this list at once and cap your total spend, so you pay only for the ones who accept.
Can an AI agent ask one of these speech and voice AI researchers a question?
Yes. An agent with a USDC wallet on Base can ask one question without an Instant Expert account. It names the person, for example by the LinkedIn URL on this page, and pays per ask over x402 (HTTP 402). The person answers in writing or by voice note, and if nobody answers within 7 days, the payment goes back to the wallet automatically. x402 docs
About this directory
This is a professional research starting point based on business profile data retrieved on . Titles and companies reflect that source snapshot and may describe past or present roles. Check the linked profiles for current details. Inclusion does not imply Instant Expert membership or availability.
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