History of Speech and Language Technology

About Us

Janet M. Baker received her B.S. from Tufts University and her Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University. She worked for IBM Research's Continuous Speech Recognition Group in time-domain signal processing, and then served as VP of Research for Verbex, a division of Exxon Enterprises. She was Co-Founder and CEO of Dragon Systems (Newton, MA). Founded in 1982 with bootstrap financing, Dragon Systems grew to nearly 400 employees globally and $70 million/yr revenues, before its sale in 2000. Among its many innovations, Dragon created the first commercial general-purpose speech dictation software, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, as well as the first audiomining, a general purpose audio-search engine. Janet has worked cooperatively with the international speech community to help make available large speech data corpora and to foster rigorous performance evaluation methodologies. Presently, she heads up Saras Institute and works with Dibner Institute at MIT, to collect, preserve, and make generally available information on the History of Speech and Language Technology.

Patri J. Pugliese received his Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University in 1982. He has taught at Boston University and at Harvard University. He worked for several years in the Research Department of the speech technology company Dragon Systems, Inc. As Research Operations Manager at Dragon Systems, he monitored Government contracts, aided in the patenting of new inventions and served as company librarian and historian. He is presently a Vice President of Saras Institute as well as a Visiting Scholar at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to his work in the History of Science, he has also contributed in the areas of Dance History and the History of Western Martial Arts.

Saras Institute is dedicated to "preserving the past for the sake of the future." Saraswati, for whom the Saras Institute is named, is the goddess of learning, knowledge, and wisdom, including the invention of speech and writing. The Saras Institute is an independent non-profit entity, and is not acting on behalf of or as a representative of any other entity or institution, including the Dibner Institute or MIT.

Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, also an independent non-profit entity, is an international center for advanced research in the history of science and technology located at MIT.