Paris Smaragdis is a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

noted for his contributions to audio

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing ''signals'', such as audio signal processing, sound, image processing, images, Scalar potential, potential fields, Seismic tomograph ...

computer audition Computer audition (CA) or machine listening is the general field of study of algorithms and systems for audio interpretation by machines. Since the notion of what it means for a machine to "hear" is very broad and somewhat vague, computer audition ...

, and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

. He is currently an associate professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

, Illinois. He currently holds over 35 patents in the areas of audio signal processing and machine learning.

Biography

Smaragdis received his bachelor's degree in music (magna cum laude) from the

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music () is a Private university, private music college in Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern Music of the United ...

in 1995, where he worked with

Richard Boulanger Richard Charles Boulanger (born November 10, 1956) is a composer, author, and electronic musician. He is a key figure in the development of the audio programming language Csound, and is associated with computer music pioneers Max Mathews and Barr ...

. He received his S.M. and PhD from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

in 1997 and 2001, respectively. While there, he worked with Professor

Barry Vercoe Barry Lloyd Vercoe (24 July 1937 – 15 June 2025) was an American computer scientist and composer. Born in New Zealand, he is best known as the inventor of Csound, a music synthesis language with wide usage among computer music composers. SAO ...

. In 2002, he joined

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric US Holdings, Inc., which is the principal subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric in the United States. MERL acts as North American arm of Mitsubishi's Corporate R& ...

(MERL) as a research scientist. From 2007 to 2010, Smaragdis was a senior research scientist a
Adobe Research
In 2010, he joined the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where he holds appointments in the UIUC Departments of Computer Science (CS) and Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE).

Public service and education

Smaragdis has been active in academic and industry public service. From 2009 to the present, he has been a steering committee member for the International Conference on Independent Component Analysis and Signal Separation. In 2013 and 2014, Smaragdis was the chair of th
IEEE Machine Learning for Signal Processing Technical Committee
From 2012 to 2015, he chaired the steering committee for the International Conference on Latent Variable Analysis. In 2018 he joined the board of directors of the

IEEE Signal Processing Society The IEEE Signal Processing Society (IEEE SPS) is one of the nearly 40 technical societies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the first one created. Its mission is to "advance and disseminate state-of-the-art scie ...

. And in 2019 and 2020, he was the chair of the
IEEE Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing Technical Committee
In 2017, with Professor Heinrich Taube, Smaragdis founded the University of Illinois' CS+Music undergraduate degree program, designed to foster interdisciplinary scholars in the core principles of both disciplines.

Awards and honors

In 2006, the MIT Technology Review named Smaragdis one of the Top 35 Young Innovators Under 35. In 2015, Smaragdis was named a

Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers , the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and ot ...

(IEEE) for his contributions to

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...

source separation and audio processing. In 2016, he received the University of Illinois Distinguished Promotion Award for "exceptional cases of scholars whose contributions have been extraordinary in terms of quality of work and overall achievement." In 2017, he received the IEEE Machine Learning for Signal Processing (MLSP) Best Paper Award and the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award.

References

Fellows of the IEEE Living people University of Illinois faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni 21st-century American engineers Year of birth missing (living people) American electrical engineers {{US-electrical-engineer-stub