Alexander Waibel

Dr. Alexander Waibel is a Professor of Computer Science at both Carnegie Mellon University (USA) and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany). He directs the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (interACT), collaborating with eight global top research institutions.

• Education: BS, MS, and PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

His research spans Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Multimodal Computing, and Speech Translation. Key innovations include the Time-Delay Neural Network (first convolutional neural network), early Multimodal Interfaces, and the first Simultaneous Lecture Translation System (2005). He pioneered mobile speech translation with Jibbigo (2009), later acquired by Facebook, where he became director of language technologies.

His work has led to >800 publications, >30,000 citations (h-index 80), and patents in human-machine communication and AI systems. He directed large-scale projects like EU-Bridge, CHIL, and IMMI, funded by NSF, DARPA, BMBF, and the EU.

• Awards: IEEE Fellow, member of Germany's National Academy of Sciences.

He co-founded ten companies and deployed his technologies in humanitarian missions, the European Parliament, and Facebook. His team’s recent work includes simultaneous interpretation services for universities and the EU.