Faculty

Dr. Hanseok Ko

Professor, Newton-Bennett Endowed Chair of Engineering
Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Physics, and Computing (https://engineering.catholic.edu/about-us/index.html)
The Catholic University of America (https://www.catholic.edu/) Washington D.C., USA
Email: koha@cua.edu
Director: Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Lab (https://sites.google.com/cua.edu/mail/home)
Director: Interdisciplinary Center for Artificial Intelligence Research (I-CAIR)

Short Biography:

Dr. Hanseok Ko is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., USA. He previously held a professorship in the Department of ECE at Korea University, Seoul, where he also served as Department Chair and later as Vice President for the Office of Information Technology Services.

Dr. Ko brings over two decades of experience in both academia and government research. Before his academic appointments, he spent 12 years as a Senior and Principal Engineer with the U.S. Department of Defense in Washington, D.C., and served on the faculty at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He has also held visiting professor positions in the ECE Department at Johns Hopkins University (2001) and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), CS Department (2009).

Dr. Ko is widely recognized for his contributions to multimodal signal processing and AI-based human-machine interaction. He is credited as the principal developer of the core acoustics and speech interface system for Hyundai and Kia Motors. At Korea University, he served as Director of the Intelligent Signal Processing Lab (https://ispl.korea.ac.kr), where his research focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning, multimodal signal processing (including acoustics, speech, and image), and interactive systems for robotics, consumer electronics, and healthcare.

He has authored over 700 research papers and holds or has pending 83 patents across the U.S. and Korea. As of August 2024, he has supervised and graduated 43 Ph.D. and 110 M.S. students.

Dr. Ko’s leadership in the field includes serving as General Chair for IEEE ICASSP 2024 (https://2024.ieeeicassp.org) and INTERSPEECH 2022 (https://interspeech2022.org). He was Editor for Sensors journal, a founding member of the Journal of Communications and Networks (JCN), and has served as President of the Acoustical Society of Korea.

His honors include being elected Fellow of the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA, 2023) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET, 2014). He is serving as a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Signal Processing Society in 2025 and 2026.

Education:

B.S. Electrical Engineering, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
M.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
M.S. Systems Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Catholic University of America, Washington DC

Professional Societies:

Fellow, ISCA (International Speech Communication Association)
Fellow, Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET, UK)
Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE SPS (2025–2026)
Conference Board Member, IEEE SPS (2025–2026)

Professional Leadership and Activities:

Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Signal Processing Society, 2025- 2026
Conference Board Member, IEEE Signal Processing Society, 2025- 2026
General Chair, IEEE ICASSP (International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing) (https://2024.ieeeicassp.org), Seoul, 2024
General Chair, INTERSPEECH (https://interspeech2022.org), Incheon, 2022
General Co-Chair, IEEE AVSS (International Conference on Advanced Video and Signal-based Surveillance), Taipei, 2019
General Co-Chair, IEEE ICASSP (International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing), Calgary, 2018
Steering Committee for the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Video and Signal-based Surveillance (AVSS), 2017, 2018, 2019
Technical Program Chair, IEEE International Conference on Multi-sensor Fusion and Integration (MFI), Daegu 2017
General Chair, IEEE International Conference on Advanced Video and Signal-based Surveillance (AVSS), Seoul, 2014
General Chair, 6th Biennial Workshop on DSP for In-Vehicle Systems, Seoul, 2013
General Chair, ASK (Acoustical Society of Korea) Conference on Speech Communication and Signal Processing, Seoul, 2012
Technical Program Chair, IEEE International Conference on Multisensor Fusion and Integration (MFI), Seoul, 2008
General Chair, ASK (Acoustical Society of Korea) Conference on Speech Communication and Signal Processing, Seoul, 2006
Technical Program Committee, International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP), Jeju, 2004
Technical Program Committee, ICASSP, 2007, 2009, 2015, 2016
Guest Editor, Sensor Journal special issue on "Sensor Fusion for Object Detection, Classification and Tracking", 2020
Guest Editor, Sensor Journal special issue on "Audio-Visual Sensor Fusion Strategies for Video Content Analytics", 2019
Associate Editor and Co-Founder, the Journal of Communications and Networks, 2007-2010
Associate Editor, the E-Bridges Journal 2010-present

Honors and Awards:

2024: Services Merit Award, IEEE Signal Processing Society
2024: Excellence in Technology Award, Korea University
2023: ISCA Fellow elected for "Contributions to Speech Processing and ASR"
2023: Distinguished Teaching Award (Undergraduate), Korea University
2022: Emile Bell Award, ASK (Acoustical Society of Korea) One award every 4 years
2022: Excellence in International Relations Award, Korea University
2020: Best Paper Award, ASK (Acoustical Society of Korea) (Paper: “Combining multi-task auto-encoder with Wasserstein GAN for Improving Speech Recognition Performance")
2017: First Rank in Acoustic Scene Classification, IEEE DCASE (Detection and Classification of Acoustic Scenes and Events) Grand Challenge
2017: Best Paper Award, International Symposium on Advanced Intelligent Systems (Paper: “Health Monitoring using Remote Heart Rate in Car Driving Environment”)
2015: Research Fellowship, Lockheed Martin RoKST&R
2015: Society Service Award Acoustical Society of Korea
2014: IET (UK) Fellow Elected for "Groundbreaking Contributions to Multimodal Signal Processing for HMI in Automobile Application.”
2013: Excellence in Teaching Award (Undergraduate), Korea University
2013: Distinguished Teaching Award (Undergraduate), Korea University
2012: Distinguished Research Fellowship, ONR
2008: Research Excellence Award, Samsung (for image enhancement under environmentally challenging conditions)
2008: Excellence in Teaching (Graduate) Award, Korea University
2006: Distinguished Research Award, ASK (Acoustical Society of Korea)
2006: “Value Creation” Award, Korea Economic Daily (for innovations in cyber security)
2006: Excellence in Service Award, (for serving as CIO), Korea University
2005: Distinguished Service Award, KICS (Korea Information and Communication Society)
1988 - 1992: Innovative Research Fellowship, US Navy

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