Larry Heck

Larry Heck
DISTINGUISHED ENGINEER
.

Brief Bio

Larry Heck is a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer, and the Chief Scientist for the Conversational Systems Research Center (CSRC) in Microsoft Research. From 2005 to 2009, he was Vice President of Search & Advertising Sciences at Yahoo!, responsible for the creation, development, and deployment of the algorithms powering Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Sponsored Search, Yahoo! Content Match, and Yahoo! display advertising. From 1998 to 2005, he was with Nuance Communications and served as Vice President of R&D, responsible for natural language processing, speech recognition, voice authentication, and text-to-speech synthesis technology. He began his career as a researcher at the Stanford Research Institute (1992-1998), initially in the field of acoustics and later in speech research with the Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Laboratory. Dr. Heck received the PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1991.

Research Interests

  • Spoken Language Understanding, Generation, and Dialog
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Statistical Modeling
  • Inference and Reasoning
  • Speech and Speaker Recognition Algorithms
  • Web Search Relevance and Information Retrieval
  • Online Advertising Matching Algorithms
  • Acoustics: Active Noise and Vibration Control
  • Mechanical Systems Monitoring
  • Signal Processing Algorithms

Work Experience

  • 2009 - Present:  Microsoft Research, Mountain View, CA
    Conversational Systems Research Center
    Distinguished Engineer
  • 2005-2009:  Yahoo, Sunnyvale, CA
    Head of Search and Advertising Sciences, Yahoo Labs
    Vice President
  • 1998-2005:  Nuance Communications, Menlo Park, CA
    Head of Nuance Research and Development
    Vice President
  • 1992-1998:  SRI International, Menlo Park, CA
    Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Lab
    Acoustics and Radar Technology Lab (ARTL)
    Senior Research Engineer

Education

  • Georgia Institute of Technology
    PhD, MS Electrical Engineering
    1986 - 1991
  • Texas Tech University
    BS with Honors, Electrical Engineering
    1981-1986
Recent Publications

    2013

    2012

    2011

    2010

    2008

    2004

    Early Deep Neural Network (Deep Learning) Publications

      2000

      1998

      Contact Info:

      larry.heck@ieee.org
      1288 Pear Avenue
      Mountain View, CA 94043