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Backed by over 30 years of experience in Artificial Intelligence, including advanced speech and natural language interpretation technology and resulting products and markets, Dr. Meisel has been an independent consultant and publisher since 1991. He wrote the first technical book on machine learning (computer pattern recognition) early in his career while a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at USC. Meisel then led the computer science division of a defense company for a decade and founded and led a speech recognition company, Speech Systems Incorporated, again for a decade.
Meisel has authored the recently published Evolution Continues: A Human-Computer Partnership and an earlier book, Computer Intelligence. He is president of TMA Associates, providing consulting services on “talking to computers.”
Meisel is also Executive Director of the Applied Voice Input Output Society (AVIOS), a not-for-profit industry organization. In that role, is the program organizer for AVIOS’s Conversational Interaction Conference.
Meisel’s background includes a solid technical foundation. He has a BS from Caltech and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and over 60 publications including a PhD dissertation and papers on neural networks, the first book on machine learning (Computer-Oriented Approaches to Pattern Recognition, Academic Press), technical and marketing articles, and twelve issued patents, the last issued in 2017. He is the editor of two books on the Voice User Interface. His business experience includes managing the Computer Science Division of a defense company and founding and running a company developing speech recognition technology.
TMA Associates, Encino, CA, 1991 – Present: President of TMA Associates. Consulting, market research, and conference management (most recently manager of the Conversational Interaction Conference in his role as Executive Director of the industry organization, Applied Voice Input Output Society—AVIOS). TMA Associates consults on advanced speech recognition and natural language technology products and AI technologies—market analysis, business planning, product design, product development, patent consulting, and financing sources. TMA has done consulting for dozens of clients, from large to small. Many of Meisel’s 12 patents (listed below) were developed while consulting for companies and are thus intellectual property of those companies.
Applied Voice Input Output Society (Non-profit professional organization) 2000- present – Executive Director (continuing), organizes AVIOS’s Conversational Interaction Conference.
Speech Systems Incorporated, Tarzana, CA, 1981-1991: Dr. Meisel founded SSI in 1981 to develop a continuous speech recognition system. He was Chairman of the Board and President for most of this period. SSI developed and sold speech recognition systems for general applications and developed a Radiology Reporting System as a turnkey product. The company was the first to develop a large-vocabulary continuous speech recognition system based on phonetic modeling, trademarked the Phonetic Engine. The company changed its name to SyVox after Dr. Meisel left and sold its assets after 15 years of existence.
Technology Service Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, 1970 – 1981: Manager, Computer Sciences Division. TSC was a system integration and R&D firm. Dr. Meisel helped the company grow from five people to over 200; the company was eventually sold to Westinghouse. Dr. Meisel began his work in speech recognition at TSC through government contracts.
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 1967 – 1970: Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Dr. Meisel helped set up the Computer Science Department. He introduced courses on Computer Design, Pattern Recognition, and Artificial Intelligence. Meisel wrote the first textbook on Computer Pattern Recognition.
1967 Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, with honors.
1966 M.S., Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, with honors.
1964 B.S., Engineering, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), with honors.
“Speech Recognition System,” U.S. Patent # 4,718,096, Issued Jan. 5, 1988.
“Preprocessing System for Speech Recognition,” U.S. Patent # 5,054,085, Issued Oct. 1, 1991.
“Voice Activated Device and Method for Providing Access to Remotely Retrieved Data,” U.S. Patent # 5,752,232, issued May 12, 1998.
“Method and apparatus for time-synchronized translation and synthesis of natural-language speech,” US Patent # 6556972, issued April 29, 2003.
“Method and apparatus for translating natural-language speech using multiple output phrases,” US Patent # 6859778, issued February 22, 2005.
“Use of identification codes in the handling and management of communications,” US Patent # 7,197,640, issued March 27, 2007.
“System and method of writing and using scripts in automated, speech-based caller interactions,” US Patent # 8,503,665 B1, issued August 6, 2013.
“Dealing with switch latency in speech recognition,” U.S. Patent 8,886,545 B2, Issued November 11, 2014.
“Computer-based grapheme-to-speech conversion using a pointing device,” U.S. Patent # 8,930,192 B1, issued January 6, 2015.
“Method and apparatus for controlling play of an audio signal,” U.S. Patent 9,066,046, issued June 3, 2015.
“Speech recognition accuracy improvement through speaker categories,” U.S. Patent 9,305,553, issued April 5, 2016.
“Method and apparatus for controlling play of an audio signal,” U.S. Patent 9,762,963, September 12, 2017.