Hsiao-Wuen Hon
Managing Director
Microsoft Research Asia
Microsoft Corp.

Hsiao-Wuen Hon is managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, located in Beijing. In this role, he oversees the lab’s research activities and collaborations with universities in the Asia Pacific region.

An IEEE Fellow, Hon is an internationally recognized expert in speech technology. He serves on the editorial board of the international journal Communication of the ACM. Hon has published more than 100 technical papers in international journals and at conferences. He co-authored “Spoken Language Processing,” which is a graduate-level textbook in speech technology, and he holds three dozen patents in several technical areas. 

Hon has been with Microsoft Corp. for 13 years. He joined Microsoft Research Asia in 2004 as a deputy managing director, responsible for research in Internet search, speech and natural language, systems, wireless technologies and networking. In addition, he managed MSN Search product development in China.

Before joining Microsoft Research Asia, Hon was an architect with the Natural Interaction Service Division at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., where he was responsible for architectural and other technical aspects of the award-winning Microsoft Speech Server. Hon joined Microsoft Research as a senior researcher in 1995. He previously worked at Apple Computer Inc., where he led research and development for Apple’s Chinese Dictation Kit.

Hon received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University and a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.