Reinforcement Learning Methods in Speech and Language Technology

About Baihan Lin

Dr. Baihan Lin is a leading researcher neuroscientist inventor and professor specializing in speech and natural language processing (NLP). He holds faculty positions at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Harvard University. Known for his expertise in trustworthy Neuro-AI and computational psychiatry Dr. Lin has made significant contributions to these fields through his work at Columbia University where he earned his PhD and through his research at leading tech companies such as IBM Google Microsoft Amazon and BGI Genomics. His research program focuses on developing intelligent speech and text-based systems to enhance human-AI and human-human interactions in healthcare. Notably he developed the first-ever online and reinforcement learning (RL)-based speaker diarization system and RL-based interactive spoken language understanding (SLU) systems for children with speech and communication disorders. Dr. Lin's work in deep learning RL and NLP has led to real-world applications including AI companions for therapists and context-aware virtual realities. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and patents and has served on program committees and as a reviewer for over 15 top AI conferences and more than 20 journals. He has chaired tutorials and workshops at INTERSPEECH ICASSP WACV and IJCAI focusing on RL human-in-the-loop language technology and most recently the alignment privacy security and governance of generative AI. As a finalist for the Bell Labs Prize and XPRIZE Dr. Lin's contributions in real-time algorithms advance the understanding of the human brain support disadvantaged individuals with mental health conditions and drive the evolution of affective and empathetic AI in the era of large language models.