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Francesc Alías Pujol
francesc.alias [at] salle.url.edu


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I am Professor at the Department of Engineering and researcher of the Human-Environment Research (HER) group at La Salle Ramon Llull University (URL).

From September 2019, I serve as Director of Teaching and Research Staff Policies as member of the Board of Directors of La Salle-URL, coordinating from February 2022 the PhD Program in Information Technologies and their application in Management, Architecture and Geophysics joinltly developed by La Salle Campus Barcelona and the Observatori de l’Ebre, an istitution also member of the URL.

I was born in Tordera, a small town of Catalonia.

Research areas

I am currently working on Signal Processing, specifically, focused on speech and acoustic signals , with the goal of achieving natural interaction between human beings, machines and their environment. Starting from a scientific background mainly related to Text-to-Speech (TTS) synthesis, I'm also interested in the following topics:

  • Expressive Speech Analysis and Synthesis
  • Numerical voice simulation
  • Acoustic sound sources identification
  • Environmental acoustics
  • New Teaching Methodologies
From 2011 to 2014, I served as Director of the HCI area of La Salle R&D, subsequently coordinating the Research group on Media Technologies (GTM) at La Salle-URL from 2014 to 2021, which was recognized by the Generalitat de Catalunya as a Consolidated Research Group (GRC) (ref. 2014 SGR 590 and ref. 2017 SGR 966) and funded during the first period [Video].

Certifications

  • 2020 Accreditation of Advanced Research (Full Professor) granted by AQU Catalunya (License 1ª Convocatòria Catedràtic (2020):7YVCXW57J), November
  • 2018 Merits of Research (Six-year period of research 2012-2017) granted by AQU Catalunya (License 1ª Convocatòria AAI Contractat (2018):URL/CNWKG7D3L), December.
  • 2013 Accreditation of Research (Assistant Professor) granted by AQU Catalunya (License U1445/100556604-154), March.
  • 2012 Merits of Research (Six-year period of research 2006-2011) granted by AQU Catalunya (License U1448-1ª Convocatòria AAI Contractat (2012):URL/30), November.
  • 2007 Tenure-Track Lecturer granted by AQU Catalunya, License U1465-1ª Convocatòria Universitats Privades (2007): URL/20), November.

Associations

Current
  • Spanish Thematic Network on Speech Technology (RTTH)
  • ISCA Speech Synthesis Special Interest Group (SynSIG)
  • ISCA Special Interest Group on Iberian Languages (SIG-IL)
Former
  • Spanish Thematic Network on Advanced Dialogue Systems (RTSDA)
  • Spanish section of the Networked and Electronic Media platform (eNEM)
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)

Conferences and Journals

Organizing and Scientific Committes
  • 2022 IberSPEECH2022 (IberSPEECH2022). Member of the Organizing Committee (Publication co-Chair) and Member of the Scientific Conmittee.
  • 2020 IberSPEECH2020 (IberSPEECH2020). Member of the Organizing Committee (Publication co-Chair) and chairman of the "R&D Projects" session.
  • 2020 9th Forum Acusticum (FORUM ACUSTICUM 2020). Member of the Scientific Committee and Co-organizer of the structured session "Smart cities and Sensors" .
  • 2018 IberSPEECH2018 (X Jornadas en Tecnologías del Habla and V Iberian SLTech Workshop) (IberSPEECH2018). Member of the Local Organizing Comittee.
  • 2018 6th Conference on Noise and Vibration Emerging Methods (NOVEM 2018). Member of the Local Organizing Comittee.
  • 2015 46th Spanish Congress on Acoustics (TECNIACUSTICA 2015). Member of the Scientific Committee and Co-organizer of the structured session "AAM-3 Environmental sound quality in smart cities" .
  • 2014 1st Workshop on Augmented Reality and Wearable Computing (ARWC 2014). Member of the Organizing Committee and Scientific Committee.
  • 2014 9th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI 2014). Member of the Local Organizing Committee and the Scientific Committee.
  • 2013 8th ISCA Speech Synthesis Workshop (SSW8). Member of the Organizing Comittee and the Scientific Committee.
  • 2011 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME 2011). Member of the Organizing Comittee (Publication co-chair) and the Scientific Committee (Quality Reviewer Award).
  • 2004 XIX Symposium of URSI (URSI 2004). Member of the Organization and Scientific Comittees.
Scientific/Program Committes
  • 2023 ISCA Speech Synthesis Workshop 2023 (SSW12).
  • 2021 ISCA Speech Synthesis Workshop 2021 (SSW11).
  • 2019 ISCA Speech Synthesis Workshop 2019 (SSW10).
  • 2019 Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (ACM IMWUT).
  • 2018 20th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2018).
  • 2018 11th Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC 2018).
  • 2017 19th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2017).
  • 2016 18th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2016).
  • 2015 17th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2015).
  • 2015 23rd ACM International Conference on Multimedia (ACMMM 2015). Member of the Scientific Committee of Experience track (2 areas: "Multimedia HCI and Quality of Experience" and "Music, Speech and Audio Processing in Multimedia").
  • 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2015).
  • 2015 23th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO 2015).
  • 2014 16th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2014).
  • 2014 22th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (ACMMM 2014). Member of the Scientific Committee of "Music, Speech and Audio Processing in Multimedia" and "Multimedia HCI and QoE" tracks.
  • 2013 15th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2013).
  • 2012 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME 2012).
  • 2010 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation of the WCCI 2010.
  • 2005 XXI Congress of SEPLN (SEPLN 2005).
Reviewer