Yan Tang

Yan Tang serves as Associate Professor in Linguistics, the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research bridges computational linguistics and acoustic engineering with focus on speech intelligibility in adverse environments.

Her research interests span speech intelligibility enhancement, computational modeling of speech perception in noise, and perceptually-motivated signal processing. Key areas include blind source separation, robust automatic speech recognition, and speech production under non-ideal listening conditions. The fingerprint analysis confirms dominant expertise in speech intelligibility (91% weighting), masker effects (100%), and Lombard effect phenomena (35%).

Recent publications demonstrate strong trends in same-talker speech masking (2024), computer-synthesized speech benefits for hearing-impaired listeners (2024), and cross-linguistic Lombard effect studies on Vietnamese tones (2023). Her work consistently integrates psychoacoustic principles with machine learning approaches for speech enhancement.

Teaching responsibilities include LING 402 (Speech and Language Processing), LING 446 (Speech Signal Processing), and LING 520 (Acoustic Phonetics). Her educational background combines computational linguistics (PhD, Universidad del País Vasco), computer science (MSc, Sheffield), and environmental sciences (MSc/BSc from Chinese institutions).

Based at 707 S Mathews Ave (4023 LCLB), she maintains active research collaborations reflected in co-authored publications with international researchers. The Beckman Institute affiliation supports her interdisciplinary work in advanced speech technology development.