Shammur Absar Chowdhury

About Me

I am a speech scientist, with a passion for analyzing and understanding human conversation. I authored more than 40 papers for different speech and NLP challenges, with the main focus on speech overlaps, turn-takings, speech discourse, code-switching, along with the explainability of the speech modules. My work also includes studying the potential of language models for its linguistic task understanding capabilities. I am currently working as a scientist at Qatar Computing Research Institute. I got my PhD under the supervision of Prof. Giuseppe Riccardi, from the University of Trento in 2017. I worked on analyzing different Turn-Taking behavior in the context of spontaneous and in-vivo human conversations while handling discourse of overlapping speech and the function of silence in the conversation. I worked in many EU-funded projects to pursue the understanding of human-human/machine interaction. I am currently involved in enriching the ArabicSpeech Portal with an aim to bridge the gap between the standard and dialectal resources and make Arabic speech technologies available for all.

Positions

  • PresentOct 2021

    Research Scientist

    QCRI: Qatar Computing Research Institute

  • Sep 2021May 2019

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    QCRI: Qatar Computing Research Institute

  • April 20192017

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    CIMeC: Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Italy

  • 2017Nov-2012

    PhD Researcher

    SIS Lab, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

  • 20122012

    Researcher

    SIS Lab, University of Trento, Italy

  • 20112010

    Senior Research Programmer

    CRBLP: Centre for Research on Bangla Language Processing, BRAC University, Bangladesh

  • 20112011

    Lecturer

    BRAC University, Bangladesh

Research Interests

  • Speech Signal Processing
  • Atypical Interaction
  • Non-Verbal Communication
  • Human-Machine Interaction
  • Machine Learning
  • Natural Language Processing

Affliated member

  •    IEEE
  •    ISCA
  •    ACL
  •    ACM

Education

  • Ph.D. 2017

    Ph.D. in Computer Science

    ICT Doctoral School, University of Trento, Italy

  • B.Sc. 2011

    Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Communication Engineering with second major in Computer Science

    BRAC University, Bangladesh

Awards

  • 2018
    NVIDIA Grant to support research on RNN-based Artificial Grammaticality to Probe Language Universals.
  • 2014
    ISCA Grant for Interspeech
  • 2012
    Achieved 100% fund for doctoral study University Fund (Ranked in Top-3 in merit list)
  • 2012
    Education Study Grant - DD342, for internship
  • 2011
    Chancellor's Gold Medal
    Achieved Chancellor's Gold Medal for highest CGPA among all University Graduates.
  • 2011
    Valedictorian
    Valedictorian for year 2010 (BRAC University 6th Convocation) for highest CGPA among all University Graduates.
  • 2011
    Vice-Chancellor's Gold Medal
    Achieved Vice-Chancellor's Gold Medal for year 2011 (BRAC University 6th Convocation) for highest CGPA from Electronic and Communication Engineering Department
  • 2008 - 2010
    A place in Vice-Chancellor’s List
    Vice-Chancellor’s Award from 2008 to 2010.
  • 2007
    Vice-Chancellor's Special Recognition Award
    Achieved the Vice-Chancellor's Special Recognition Award for high standard of discipline and achievement, during Residential Semester, Summer 2007.
  • 2007-2010
    Performance-based scholarship
    Have achieved performance-based scholarship throughout 4-years of Undergraduate.