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People at MSP lab

Faculty

Carlos Busso
Professor

Members

Pravin Mote
Ph.D. Student
Speech Emotion Recognition

Karen Rosero
Ph.D. Student
Speech Production

Xavier Yin
Ph.D. Student
Articulatory Synthesis

Jaeyeon Kim
Ph.D. Student*
Reasoning with LALM

Chan-Jan (Jeff) Hsu
Ph.D. Student
ASR with LALM

Haeri Kim
Ph.D. Student*
Speech Processing

Zeyang Zhang
Research Assistant
Multimodal AI

Vanessa Wei
M.S. Student
Speech Emotion Recognition

Elaine Zhang
M.S. Student
Emotional Reasoning

Kuan Yi (Gary) Lee
M.S. Student
ASR with LALM

Ella Wileman
M.S. Student
Multimodal AI

Prajwal Kadri
M.S. Student
Multichannel Diarization

Niveditha Kovilakath
M.S. Student
Multimodal AI

Szu-Ju Chen
M.S. Student
Multimodal AI

* co-advised with Prof. Shinji Watanabe

MSP Team over the years

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MSP team in 2010
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MSP team in 2014
3 / 9
MSP team in 2015
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MSP team in 2018
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MSP team in 2019
6 / 9
MSP team in 2020 (COVID-19 Edition)
7 / 9
MSP team in 2021
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MSP team in 2022
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MSP team in 2025

MSP Alumni

PhD Students

Luz Martinez-Lucas (2022-2026)
PhD Thesis: "Context, bias, and dynamics in speech emotion recognition"
 First position after UTD: TBA
 Current position: TBA
Abinay Reddy Naini (2022-2025)
PhD Thesis: "Domain generalization for ordinal speech emotion recognition"
 First position after UTD: AI Researcher, Amplifier Health, San Francisco, CA
 Current position: AI Researcher, Amplifier Health, San Francisco, CA
Kayla Caughlin (2020-2024)
PhD Thesis: "Classification Methods for Automated, Non-Invasive In Vivo Oral Cancer Diagnosis"
 First position after UTD: Assistant Data Scientist, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
 Current position: Assistant Data Scientist, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Lucas Goncalves (2020-2024)
PhD Thesis: "Robustness and Versatility in Multimodal Emotion Recognition"
 First position after UTD: Applied Scientist, Amazon, New York, NY
 Current position: Senior Applied Scientist, Oracle, New York, NY
Seong-Gyun Leem (2020-2024)
PhD Thesis: "Speech Emotion Recognition in the Presence of Background Noise"
 First position after UTD: Research Scientist, Reality Labs in Meta, Seattle, WA
Current position: Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Powerschool
Ali N. Salman (2018-2024)
PhD Thesis: "Personalized Video Facial Expression Recognition on the Edge"
 First position after UTD: Research Scientist, ARRAY Innovation, Bahrain
 Current position: Research Scientist, ARRAY Innovation, Bahrain
Andrea Vidal (2018-2023)
PhD Thesis: "Synthesizing lip movements and modeling human behavior by using generative models and graph neural networks"
 First position after UTD: Research and Development Scientist, OpenStream, NJ
 Current position: Research Scientist, Emobot, Paris, France
Wei-Cheng Lin (2019-2023)
PhD Thesis: "Improving Temporal Modeling and Generalization for Speech Emotion Recognition"
 First position after UTD: Research Scientist, Robert Bosch, Pittsburgh, PA
 Current position: Senior Research Scientist, Deepgram
Yuning Qiu (2018-2022)
PhD Thesis: "Unsupervised Driving Anomaly Detection in Naturalistic Driving Scenarios"
 First position after UTD: AI Solution Engineer, Intel, Austin, TX
 Current position: AI Solution Engineer, Intel, Austin, TX
Kusha Sridhar (2017-2021)
PhD Thesis: "Unsupervised personalization and deep uncertainty modeling for speech emotion recognition."
 First position after UTD: Postdoctoral researcher at Rice University, Houston, TX
 Current position: Sr. Manager - Advanced AI Research Scientist, Accenture, Mountain View, CA
Sumit Jha (2016-2021)
PhD Thesis: "Novel Modeling of Driver Attention in Real World Scenarios using Probabilistic Salient Maps"
 First position after UTD: Senior Research Engineer at Samsung Research America, Irvine, CA
 Current position: Staff Research Engineer, Samsung Research America, Irvine, CA
Srinivas Parthasarathy (2015-2019)
PhD Thesis: "Novel Frameworks for Attribute-Based Speech Emotion Recognition using Time-Continuous Traces and Sentence-Level Annotations."
 First position after UTD: Applied Scientist, Amazon, Sunnyvale, CA
 Current position: Applied Science Manager, Ring, Sunnyvale, CA
Mohammed AbdelWahab (2013-2019)
PhD Thesis: "Domain Adaptation for Speech Based Emotion Recognition."
 First position after UTD: AT&T Labs Research, Bedminster, NJ
 Current position: Senior inventive scientist, AT&T Labs Research, Bedminster, NJ
Fei Tao (2013-2018)
PhD Thesis: "Advances in audiovisual speech processing for robust voice activity detection and automatic speech recognition."
 First position after UTD: Research Scientist, Uber, San Francisco, CA
 Current position: Staff machine learning engineer/Lead of multimodal AI, NewsBreak, Mountain View, CA
Reza Lotfian (2013-2018)
PhD Thesis: "Machine Learning Solutions for Emotional Speech: Exploiting the Information of Individual annotations."
 First position after UTD: Machine Learning Researcher, Cogito, Boston, MA
 Current position: Senior Machine Learning Engineer, athenahealth, Boston, MA
Najmeh Sadoughi (2013-2017)
PhD Thesis: "Synthesizing Naturalistic and Meaningful Speech-Driven Behaviors."
 First position after UTD: Research Scientist, EMR.AI, San Francisco, CA
 Current position: Senior Applied Scientist, Amazon, Seattle, WA
Nanxiang (Sean) Li (2011-2015)
PhD Thesis: "Modeling of Driver Behavior in Real World Scenarios using Multiple Noninvasive Sensors."
 First position after UTD: Research Scientist, Honda Research Institute, Mountain View, CA
 Current position: Principal Research Scientist, Motional, Mountain View, CA
Soroosh Mariooryad (2010-2014)
PhD Thesis: "Improving Robustness of Emotion Recognition Systems: Continuous Emotion Descriptors, Contextual Information and Lexical Compensation."
 First position after UTD: Software Engineer at Google, Mountain View, CA
 Current position: Staff Research Scientist, Google DeepMind, Mountain View, CA

Visiting Scholars and Post-Doctoral Researcher

 		Chan-Jan (Jeff) Hsu (2025-2026)
National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
Jing-Tong (Roger) Tzeng (2024)
National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu City, Taiwan
Huang-Cheng (David) Chou (2021-2022)
National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu City, Taiwan
Yakup KUTLU (2013)
Iskenderum Technical University, Iskenderum, Hatay, Turkey
Youngkwon Lim (2011-2012)
Samsung Electronics Research Institute America, Richardson, TX
Juan Pablo Arias (2010-2011)
Fortinet, Santiago, Chile

Master Students

Patarapornkan Anantarangsi (2025-2026)
First position after CMU: TBD
 Current position: TBD
Esther Sun (2025-2026)
First position after CMU: TBD
 Current position: TBD
Hsuan-Hao Lin (2025-2026)
First position after CMU: MS Student, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
 Current position: MS Student, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Zeyang Zhang (2025-2026)
MS. Thesis: "Cross-Modal Learning Through Hierarchical Quantized Embeddings"
First position after CMU: Research Assistant, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
 Current position: Research Assistant, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Christian Flores (2024-2025)
First position after UTD: MS Student at The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX
 Current position: MS Student at The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX
Lucas Gonçalves (2020-2023)
First position after UTD: PhD student at UT Dallas, Richardson, TX
 Current position: Applied Scientist, Amazon, New York, NY, USA
Alec Burmania (2016-2018)
MS. Thesis: "Methods and experimental design for collecting emotional labels using crowdsourcing"
 First position after UTD: Lennox International, Richardson, TX
 Current position: Demand Planning Manager, Lennox International, Richardson, TX
Yunjie Zhang (2016-2017)
First position after UTD: PhD student at UT Dallas, Richardson, TX
 Current position: Software Engineering, Google, Mountain View, CA
Anil Jakkam (2015-2017)
MS. Thesis: "A Multimodal Analysis of Synchrony during Dyadic Interaction Using a Metric Based on Sequential Pattern Mining."
 First position after UTD: Systems Analysis Engineer, Knowles Intelligent Audio, Mountain View, CA
 Current position: Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Quizlet, San Francisco, CA
Sumit Jha (2015-2016)
MS. Thesis: "Analysis and Estimation of Driver Visual Attention using Head Position and Orientation in Naturalistic Driving Conditions."
 First position after UTD: PhD Student at UTD
 Current position: Staff Research Engineer, Samsung Research America, Irvine, CA
Srinivas Parthasarathy (2013-2014)
MS. Thesis: "Relation Between Emotion Classification Performance and Evaluator Agreement with Absolute and Relative Descriptors."
 First position after UTD: Robert Bosch LLC, Palo Alto, CA
 Current position: Senior Applied Scientist, Amazon Lab126, Sunnyvale, CA
Sheldon Dsouza (2012)
First position after UTD: Software Engineer, Apple, Cupertino, CA
 Current position: Engineering Manager, Apple, Cupertino, CA
Tauhidur Rahman (2010-2012)
MS. Thesis: "Improving robustness of emotional speech detection system."
 First position after UTD: PhD student at Cornell University
 Current position: Assistant Professor, Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Shalini Keshavamurthy (2010-2011)
UtopiaCompression Corp, Los Angeles, California
 First position after UTD: Research and Development Engineer, UtopiaCompression Corp, Los Angeles, CA
 Current position: Machine Learning Lead, Humana, Boston, MA
Jinesh Jain (2010-2011)
MS. Thesis: "Driver Distraction: Multimodal analysis and modeling of driver behavior in real-world scenarios."
First position after UTD: Hardware Quality Engineer, Belkin International, Los Angeles, CA
 Current position: Tech Lead, Meta, Sunnyvale, CA
Anand Batlagundu (2010)
First position after UTD: Qualcomm, San Diego, CA
 Current position: RF Embedded Software Engineer, Qualcomm, San Diego, CA
Somu Palaniappan (2010)
First position after UTD: RF Design Engineer, Nokia Siemens Networks, Dallas, TX
 Current position: Director of Data Science and Pricing Analytics, McKesson, Irving, TX
Premkumar Sridhar (2009)
First position after UTD: Systems Integration Engineer, Ericsson Inc, Dallas, TX
 Current position: System Structure Design Engineer, Samsung Electronics America, Plano, Texas

Undergraduate Students

Anish Saha (2026)
First position after MSP: BS Student at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
 Current position: BS Student at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Christian Flores (2024)
First position after UTD: MS Student at The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX
 Current position: MS Student at The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX
Shruthi Subramanium (2020-2023)
First position after UTD: Product Engineer at Texas Instruments, Richardson, TX
 Current position: Product Test Engineer at Texas Instruments, Richardson, TX
Isaac Brooks (2020-2023)
First position after UTD: Engineer at Texas Instruments, Richardson, TX
 Current position: Engineer at Texas Instruments, Richardson, TX
Olivia Bonin (2021)
First position after UTD: BS Student at UT Dallas, Richardson, TX
 Current position: Failure Analysis Engineer, Texas Instruments, Richardson, TX
Luz Martinez-Lucas (2018-2021)
First position after UTD: MS Student at UT Dallas, Richardson, TX
 Current position: PhD Student at UT Dallas, Richardson, TX
Jerri Luckenbaugh (2019-2021)
First position after UTD: Software Developer at General Motors, Austin, TX
 Current position: PhD student at the University of California at San Diego, La Joya, CA
Kayla Caughlin (2019-2020)
First position after UTD: PhD Student at UT Dallas, Richardson, TX
 Current position: PhD Student at UT Dallas, Richardson, TX
Tiancheng Hu (2018-2020)
First position after UTD: MS Student at ETH Zurich
 Current position: PhD student at Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
John Harvill (2018-2019)
First position after UTD: PhD Student at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
 Current position: Applied Scientist II, Amazon Web Services, Santa Clara, CA
Elizabeth Higgins (2018-2019)
First position after UTD: BS student at UTD, Richardson, TX
 Current position: Applications Engineer at Texas Instruments, Richardson, TX
Asim Gazi (2017-2018)
First position after UTD: PhD Student at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
 Current position: Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Michelle Bancroft (2016-2018)
First position after UTD: Central Appraisal Services, Forney, TX
 Current position: Central Appraisal Services, Forney, TX
Dorothy Mantle (2017-2018)
First position after UTD: PhD Student at Stanford University
 Current position: Stanford Mechanical Engineering PhD Candidate, Stanford University
Alec Burmania (2012-2016)
First position after UTD: Software Engineer II at Lennox International, Richardson, TX
 Current position: Demand Planning Manager, Lennox International, Richardson, TX
Preston Luthy (2015)
First position after UTD: BS student at MIT
 Current position: Data Science Lead at Biotech Company, Stealth Mode, Cambridge, MA
Jaejin Cho (2014-2015)
First position after UTD: PhD student at John Hopkins University
 Current position: Senior Research Scientist, Samsung Research America, MD
Zackary Lindstrom (2013-2014)
First position after UTD: M.S. UT Dallas (Systems Engineering and Management)
 Current position: Director of Product Management, Fundbox, Plano, TX
Tam Tran (2011-2014)
First position after UTD: RF Engineer, Sema Wireless, Dallas, TX
 Current position: Customer Care Representative, Hyphen Solutions, Farmers Branch, TX
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