PeopleResearch StaffRobert A. Berkovitz, Chairman, Co-Founder, has held senior research and management positions in electronics and electroacoustics for nearly forty years. His work has included development of electroacoustic equipment for music reproduction, research in loudspeaker design and evaluation, contributions to film sound reproduction, and development of computer-based systems for speech analysis. Prior to founding Sensimetrics, he was a consultant to Bolt, Beranek & Newman. He was Director of Research at the Cambridge loudspeaker firm Acoustic Research ("AR") for eight years. Earlier, he served for five years in London as a member of the management group at Dolby Laboratories, where he was primarily responsible for public relations, advertising and communications. At Sensimetrics, he has been the Principal Investigator in a number of NIH-supported speech and hearing research projects. He created a computer-based speech analysis system (the SpeechStation), now widely used in university instruction and research. He has patents, several with co-inventors, in the areas of digital signal processing and sound reproduction. He is an author of papers in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. He has taught at Emerson College and lectured at Boston University, MIT, the New School, and by invitation to technical audiences in England, France, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Switzerland and Portugal. He is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society and former Chairman of its Boston section, and a member of the Acoustical Society of America. papers | personal web page | cv
Harold A. Cheyne II, PhD, Research Scientist, received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering with a concentration in music at Tufts University, and his Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Biosciences and Technology from MIT. His work at MIT focused on developing an acoustic model of the human vocal system to relate the externally measured acceleration of the skin on the neck to conventional clinical measures of vocal function. He extended this work at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary by working with Sensimetrics to develop the Portable Voice Accumulator, an ambulatory monitoring device for voice that can use his acoustic model to estimate vocal parameters. Currently at Sensimetrics, his research explores an interface to allow one-handed control of a speech synthesizer. He teaches speech science at the MGH Institute for Health Professions, and is a member of the Acoustical Society of America. papers | personal web page | cv
papers | personal web page | cv
Oded Ghitza, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University, Israel, in 1975, 1977 and 1983, respectively. From 1968 to 1984 he was with the Signal Corps Research Laboratory of the Israeli Defense Forces. During 1984-1985 he was a Bantrell post-doctoral fellow at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a consultant with the Speech Systems Technology Group at Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, Massachusetts. From 1985 to early 2003 he was with the Acoustics and Speech Research Department, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey, where his research was aimed at developing models of hearing and at creating perception based signal analysis methods for speech recognition, coding and evaluation. Since early 2003 he is with Sensimetrics Corp., Somerville, Massachusetts, where he continues to acquire and model basic knowledge of auditory perception for the purpose of advancing speech, audio and hearing-aid technology. papers | personal web page | cv
Ray Goldsworthy, PhD, Research Scientist, received his B.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Kentucky in 1997. He received his Ph.D. degree in Speech and Hearing Bio-Sciences and Technology through a joint program between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctoral thesis focused on noise-reduction algorithms and performance metrics for improving speech reception in noise for cochlear implant (CI) users. Ray is a CI user himself and personally aware of the hearing difficulties that CI users have in the presence of background noise. At Sensimetrics, he has led a project to develop a real-time noise-reduction prototype to improve speech reception in noise for CI users. Ray is also interested in psycho-acoustic modeling of the perceptual differences between CI users and normal hearing listeners. He developed a psycho-acoustic model for his thesis that accurately predicts performance for CI users in a variety of conditions, including non-linear operations such as noise-reduction strategies. papers | personal web page | cv
papers | personal web page | cv
Patrick M. Zurek, PhD, President, Company Director, received his doctoral degree in Experimental Psychology from Arizona State University in 1976. From that time until 1981 he was a Research Associate at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, where his principal work was on otoacoustic emissions from human and animal ears. In 1981, he joined the Communications Biophysics Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a Principal Research Scientist. His work there focused on the behavioral study of hearing impairment and its rehabilitation through hearing aid signal processing. Dr. Zurek has published numerous papers and book chapters on these and other topics in psychoacoustics (CV) and has been a reviewer of manuscripts and grants in his field. He is a member of the Auditory Society of America and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. In 1999 Dr. Zurek succeeded Robert Berkovitz as President of Sensimetrics where he has been engaged in a variety of research projects relating principally to the development of novel technology for hearing. The subjects of these development projects have included: a headset-style assistive listening device; a hand-held digital instrument for infant hearing screening; an audiometric spatial-hearing test system; interactive courseware for instruction in Hearing Science; advanced hearing protectors; MRI-compatible earphones; and hearing loss simulations for audiology. papers | personal web page | cv
Consulting Scientists
Nathaniel
I. Durlach,
Consultant, Company Director, is a Senior Scientist in the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at
MIT. Initially trained as a mathematician, he was employed by
the MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 1954 to 1963 to help develop
improved radar air defense systems. Subsequently, he became
interested in the study of living systems. His research on
living systems has been very broad, ranging from the study of
echolocation systems in bats and necrophoric behavior in ants to
topics in the social sciences; however, his main focus has been
the sensorimotor performance of humans and, in particular,
auditory and tactile psychophysics.
He
is Co-Director of the Sensory Communications Group in the
Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, and a Visiting
Scientist in the Biomedical Engineering Department of Boston
University. He is the author (or co-author) of numerous book
chapters and of roughly 100 refereed articles in such journals
as Perception and Psychophysics and the Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America; he reviews articles, proposals,
and research programs in the field of psychophysics. He has been
awarded the Silver Medal of the Acoustical Society of America
for his contributions to psychoacoustics. He has functioned as
Principal or Co-Principal Investigator on dozens of research
grants at MIT. He is a Co-Founder of the Fayerweather Street
Elementary School in Cambridge. During the past few years, Mr.
Durlach's interests have focused on teleoperator and
virtual-environment systems, with special emphasis on the
human-machine interface used in such systems. He is Co-Founder
and Director of the MIT Virtual Environment and Teleoperator
Research Consortium (VETREC), as well as Co-Founder and
Editor-in-Chief of the MIT Press journal PRESENCE: Teleoperators
and Virtual Environments. He recently served as Chair of the
Committee of the National Academy of Sciences charged with
establishing a national research agenda for research and
development of teleoperators and virtual environments. papers | personal web page | cv
papers | personal web page | cv
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