Michael Wand
I am a Senior Researcher at the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA
(Istituto Dalle Molle di studi sull'intelligenza artificiale), with
Jürgen Schmidhuber. I work in machine learning
(currently mostly neural network-based).
Contact information:
Michael Wand
Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence USI-SUPSI
Polo universitario Lugano - Campus Est, Via la Santa 1
CH-6962 Lugano-Viganello
E-Mail: michael "att" idsia.ch
More access and contact information.
Short Biography
- Since July 2021: In addition to being an IDSIA researcher, I am affiliated to the newly founded SUPSI institute for
Digital Technologies for Personalized Healthcare (MeDiTech).
- Since January 2019: Senior Researcher at IDSIA.
- Since June 2014: Researcher at IDSIA.
- January 2014: PhD degree (Dr.-Ing.) at Cognitive Systems Lab,
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, thesis title Advancing Electromyographic Continuous Speech
Recognition: Signal Preprocessing and Modeling (PDF).
- 2008 - 2014: PhD studies in the field of Silent
Speech Interfaces based on Electromyography (EMG) at Cognitive Systems Lab.
- 2001 - 2007: Studies of Mathematics and Computer Science at Karlsruhe University (now Karlsruhe Institute of Technology),
leading towards a diploma degree (roughly equivalent to Master's) in mathematics (thesis field: applied analysis).
- 2006: Visiting student researcher at Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, PA, USA,funded by a state scholarship of the state of Baden-Württemberg.
- 2004 - 2005: Exchange student at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, as a member of
the Ontario-Baden-Württemberg exchange program.
- 2000: Finished Gymnasium (German High School), with a school prize for the best graduation result of the year.
Interests
See also Research and Projects for information about my ongoing work.
A large part of my research has been dedicated to the application of speech recognition methods to
Silent Speech, where an acoustic signal is not available (e.g. for speech-impaired persons) or undesired
(e.g. for confidential communication in the public). A method of choice is Electromyography (EMG),
where electrical signals from the facial muscles are captured with surface electrodes. The resulting signal is fed into a suitably adapted speech
recognizer (EMG-to-text), or alternatively, a speech synthesizer (EMG-to-speech). I also work on
Lipreading, where speech is recognized from images
of a person's face. Here the goal is to leverage the power of contemporary image processing towards this exciting task.
read more...
I am interested in all kinds of applications of machine learning to analysis of challenging, real-life data:
A field which is both rewarding, and offers a large variety of challenges.
I was a Marie Curie fellow in the
Prototouch project, where I worked
on machine learning for diverse kinds of data related to haptics and haptic/tactile devices. I
continued this line of research within the
INPUT project, where an excellent European Consortium
worked on making the control of upper limb prostheses versatile and straightforward. The method of choice is the electromyographic signal,
captured on the arm stump, processed by a powerful neural network based machine learning system. From 2021, I will manage the IDSIA
research within the
AIDD project, where machine learning is applied to solve high-end chemical and pharmaceutical
challenges, aiming towards a
One Chemistry model that can predict outcomes of chemical reactions, derive properties of compounds, and help in molecule generation and synthesis.
(Image credit:
www.publicdomainpictures.net, public domain by Mohamed Mahmoud Hassan)
read more...
I am interested in the properties of neural networks, particularly with respect to the data representation in trained networks, and with the
training process itself. This bridges the gap between my interests in applied machine learning and the theoretical foundations of our
field. (Photo credit: "A pampered culture" by Parthiv Haldipur on
Flickr, under
CC BY-NC 2.0 license).
The IDSIA is located in beautiful
Ticino, located at the southern border of Switzerland and
featuring a unique blend of a moutain region and warm, mediterranean summers (apparently, summer starts in march and end in october). Hiking is
one of my favorite pastimes, and
I have collected a few photos in this area.