Faculty
Faculty
Embedded Files
Dr. Berrak Sisman
She is a tenure-track faculty at Hopkins, specializing in expressive speech generation, affective computing, security risks posed by deepfakes, and healthcare applications of speech and language.
With her students at JHU, she builds AI-based systems that not only speak but also communicate with emotion, personality, and intent. Her lab then leverages this research to advance deepfake detection and develop more secure and trustworthy speech technologies.
On this page, you can see her graduate students and explore the research topics they are working on.
Postdocs
Postdocs
Dr. Zexin Cai
Zexin Cai is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP) at Johns Hopkins University. He received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Duke University in 2023. During his PhD studies, he completed an internship as an Applied Research Scientist at Microsoft. He is advised by Berrak Sisman and Nicholas Andrews (JHU HLT COE).
Research Field: Text-to-speech Synthesis, Voice Conversion, and Audio Deepfake Detection.
Students
Students
Xiutian Zhao
Xiutian Zhao is a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman. He previously studied Masters Degree at the University of Edinburgh and holds another M.S. degree in Applied Statistics from Columbia University.
Research Field: Audio Language Models, Multimodal Learning, Emotion
Aurosweta Mahapatra
Aurosweta is a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman. She received her M.S. degree from UCLA, where she was advised by Dr. Abeer Alwan.
Research Field: Secure Speech Technologies, Robust Deepfake Detection
Ismail Rasim Ulgen
Rasim is a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Boğaziçi University in Turkey.
Research Field: Speech Synthesis, Expressive Speech Translation, Anonymization
Shreeram S. Chandra
Shreeram is a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Dallas, advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman. He is currently a visiting researcher at Johns Hopkins University.
Research Field: Speech Synthesis, Emotion, Brain-to-Speech
Zongyang is a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Dallas, advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman. She received her M.S. degree from the National University of Singapore, where she was advised by Dr. Haizhou Li.
Research Field: Voice Conversion
Avantika Singh
Avantika Singh is a Master’s student in Data Science at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Smile Lab at the Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP), advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman.
Research Field: Deepfake Detection, Source Tracing
Zihan Zhang
Zihan is a master’s student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a member of the SMILE Lab at the Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP), advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman.
Research Field: Multimodal-audio generation, voice conversion
Qingyu Liu
Qingyu is an ECE Master's student at Johns Hopkins University advised by Prof. Berrak Sisman, and collaborates closely with Prof. Xie Chen at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Research Field: multi-lingual TTS and voice conversion
Hsiang Chen Yeh
Hsiang is currently pursuing a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Johns Hopkins University while concurrently completing an M.S. in Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Research Field: AI for psychology and mental health
Luqi Sun
Luqi is a Master's student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman.
Research Field: Alzheimer's Dementia, Speech for Healthcare, Multimodal Learning
I Chuan Chen (Jose)
Jose is a Master's student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and a member of Smile Lab at Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP), advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman.
Research Field: AI for Sports Analysis
Will Boudy
Will is a master’s student in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently a member of Smile Lab at Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP), advised by Dr. Berrak Sisman.
Research Field: Audio Language Models, Emotional Speech Synthesis
Tianyu (Peter) Gao
Tianyu is a master’s student at Johns Hopkins University's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He is supervised by Berrak Sisman and Philipp Koehn on a collaborative research project.
Research Field: expressive speech translation
Divyansh (Dev) Lalwani
Dev is a senior undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University, majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics and Statistics. He is passionate about research and is advised by Dr. Sisman. He was previously an undergraduate researcher at the Neuroengineering and Bioinstrumentation Lab at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Research Field: EEG-based voice conversion
Emotional Support Expert
Emotional Support Expert
Chuck Sisman
Emotional Support Expert (by appointment or whenever he feels like it. He doesn’t follow the rules.)
Chuck is from Dallas and moved to Baltimore due to his new job at JHU. He is a very friendly labradoodle. He enjoys play time in the lab, attends CLSP meetings time to time, and never says no to treats. You can communicate with him both in English and Turkish. Over the years, he has acquired several nicknames, including Chuckie, Chuckie-the-Doodle, Chuckie-Boy, and Oğlum (which means "my boy/son" in Turkish).
Alumni
Alumni
Junchen Lu (Visiting Researcher; 2023 at UT Dallas, 2025 at JHU)
Jan Melechovsky (PhD at SUTD Singapore, 2021 - 2025; co-advised by Dorien Herremans)
Perry Lam (PhD at SUTD, 2020 - 2024; co-advised by Dorien Herremans), now Faculty (Lecturer) at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Singapore
Rui Liu (Postdoc at SUTD, 2021 - 2022), now Professor at Inner Mongolia University, China
Philip Lee (Undergraduate Researcher at UT Dallas, 2023), now Software Engineer at PepsiCo, USA
Ambuj Mehrish (Postdoct at SUTD, 2021-2023), now Postdoc at Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
Zhou Kun (Visiting researcher at UT Dallas, 2022 - 2023), now Scientist at Alibaba, Singapore
Dorothy Hong Bui (Undergraduate Qualcomm Award Winner at UT Dallas, 2022 - 2023)
Huiqing Lin (MEng at SUTD, 2021 - 2022), now Software Engineer at Open Government Products, GovTech, Singapore
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