Bell Labs
Osamu Fujimura (scientist) was an employee for whom from 1973 to 1988?
Osamu Fujimura ( scientist ) Osamu Fujimura 藤村靖 ( August 29 , 1927 in Tokyo – March 13 , 2017 in Waikoloa Beach , Hawaii ) was a Japanese physicist , phonetician and linguist , recognized as one of the pioneers of speech science . Fujimura was also known for his influential work in the diverse field of speech-related studies including acoustics , phonetics/phonology , instrumentation techniques , speech production mechanisms , and computational/theoretical linguistics . After getting his Doctorate of Science from the University of Tokyo through the research he conducted at MIT , Fujimura served as Director and Professor at the Research Institute of Logopedics and Phoniatrics ( RILP ) , at the University of Tokyo from 1965 to 1973 . He then continued his research at Bell Labs in Murray Hill , New Jersey , in the U.S. , from 1973 to 1988 as a Department Head , working for Max Mathews . He moved his research to The Ohio State University where he was Professor and Department Head for Speech and Hearing Science . He was named Professor Emeritus in 2013 . He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences . Biography . Fujimuras career as a scientist spanned nearly three quarters of a century . He authored , co-authored or edited over 256 scientific publications covering a vast range of topics including physics , speech acoustics and articulation , phonology , kanji transcription methods , syntax , and more . These included 11 books and monographs , 64 journal articles , 58 articles or chapters in books , 56 proceedings articles , 42 miscellaneous writings and 25 articles in RILP . Fujimura’s work covers all aspects of phonetics , with a focus on speech articulation , analysis of acoustic phonetics , and speech perception . Fujimura and his colleagues introduced X-ray technologies to study human articulation patterns . The X-ray macrobeam speech corpus is considered to be an important research resource for modern phonetic research . His work contributed to the foundation of modern acoustic analyses of speech sounds , especially the acoustics of nasal consonants , proposing the notion of the “anti-formant” . His work also showed that consonant-to-vowel transition is perceptually more salient than vowel-to-consonant transition . In addition to his contribution to phonetic science , he wrote a review of “Syntactic Structures” by Noam Chomsky in 1963 , thereby contributing to the introduction of generative linguistics in Japan . Later in his career , he proposed a model of speech articulation called “the C/D model” , in which phonological featural specifications are “Converted” and “Distributed” to several articulators . The C/D model is an explicit theory of how mental , phonological information is mapped onto actual physiological articulatory commands . This theory is currently being pursued by a number of phoneticists . His first position was Research Assistant at The Kobayashi Institute of Physical Research , Kokubunzi , Tokyo from 1952 – 1958 . He then served as Assistant Professor at the Research Laboratory of Communication Science in the University of Electrocommunications at Chōfu , Tokyo from 1958 to 1965 . From 1958 to 1961 he worked at MIT as Division of Sponsored Research staff member at the Research Laboratory of Electronics ( Speech Communication Group ) . At MIT he was supervised by Drs . Morris Halle and K . N . Stevens . This was followed by two years ( 1963 – 1965 ) as a Guest Researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology , Stockholm , Sweden , where he was supervised by Dr . Gunnar Fant . During this time , he conducted research that contributed to the foundation of modern acoustic analyses . He obtained his D.Sc in Physics from the University of Tokyo in 1962 . Starting in 1965 , he served as a professor at the Research Institute of Logopedics and Phoniatrics in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tokyo . He served as the director of the Institute between 1969 and 1973 , during which time he published many important phonetic research papers . Concurrently in 1973 , he also was Adjunct Professor , Dept . of Linguistics , Faculty of Letters , at the University of Tokyo , and also Chair of the Graduate Course in Physiology ( in the Division of Medicine ) , the University of Tokyo . It was during this time that RILP became an active research center for speech science studies , focusing on developing highly advanced techniques and tools for studying articulation of speech , including fiberoptics , EMG ( electromyography ) and the X-Ray Microbeam . Some studies conducted at RILP during this time are considered to be foundational to modern phonetics science , and still cited in current phonetics papers . In 1973 , he moved to AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill , NJ , USA . At Bell Labs he served as the head of the Department of Linguistics and Speech Analysis Research until 1984 , the head of Department of Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence Research until 1987 , and the head of Department of Artificial Intelligence Research until 1988 . During this time Fujimura worked with a number of scientists and is remembered for encouraging young researchers including Mark Liberman , Janet Pierrehumbert , William Poser , Mary Beckman , Marian Macchi , Sue Hertz , Jan Edwards , and Julia Hirschberg . Fujimura’s broad vision about the entire field of linguistics is evident in his impact on post-doc researchers at Bell Labs such as John McCarthy , a formal phonologist , and Barbara Partee , a formal semanticist . In 1988 , Fujimura moved to the Department of Speech & Hearing Science at The Ohio State University where he worked until retiring as a Professor Emeritus in 2003 . During his time at OSU , he was also a Member at the Center for Cognitive Science ( 1988 to 2003 ) , and a Participating Professor at the Biomedical Engineering Center ( 1992 to 2003 ) . In addition he was a periodic Guest Researcher at ATR/HIP in Japan from 1992 to 1996 . From 1997 to 1998 he took sabbatical leave from OSU to be a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitation Fellow at the Research Institute of Asian and African Languages and Cultures at the Tokyo University for Foreign Studies . Fujimura served as a fellow for the International Institute for Advanced Studies from 2004 to 2006 . It was during this time that Fujimura began to formulate the C/D model of speech articulation while mentoring researchers such as Reiner Wilhelms Tricarico , Chao-Min Wu , Donna Erickson , Kerrie Beechler Obert , Caroline Menezez , and Bryan Pardo . After retirement from OSU , he was a researcher at the Center of Excellence ( COE ) , Nagoya University from 2003 to 2004 working with professors K . Kakehi & F . Itakura . Fujimura then served as fellow at the International Institute for Advanced Studies , Kyoto , Japan from April 2004 to August 2006 . Fujimura believed strongly diversity and inclusion in science . Through mentorship and encouragement Fujimura aided a younger generation of speech scientists . He encouraged the young generation to “Pay it Forward” with their own junior researchers , creating a perpetual positive cycle . Patents . As a basic researcher pioneering work on speech synthesis , Fujimura did not frequently patent his inventions . Fujimura did patent his Speech transmission system from 1978 , US 4170719 A . This machine created speech synthesis with voiced and unvoiced sounds produced differently . One of his creations was the computer-tracking-based X-Ray microbeam system for recording human utterances . The first version of the machine was at University of Tokyo , built by JEOL ( Nihon-Denshi KK ) . The second version was built at University of Wisconsin and was in use until 2009 . They used extremely low doses of X-ray to track the movement of the tongue and oral chamber in order to study how humans uttered sounds . Both machines were used by generations of researchers to discover and to verify theories of human speech generation , and lead to the development of CAT scans . Personal life . Osamu Fujimura was born August 29 , 1927 . The Fujimura family is descended from the Miyamoto clan ( 源氏 ) , remotely related to the samurai Minamoto Yoritomo ( 源頼朝 ) , who founded the Kamakura Bakufu ( military government site ) as a Shōgun ( 将軍 ) in the 12th century . Yoritomos grave is behind the Hachimangu 八幡宮 in Yukinoshita , Kamakura . He was survived by his second wife J.C . Williams , and four sons , Akira , Makoto , Wataru , and Itaru .