I am always excited to hear from highly motivated Ph.D. applicants who are interested in joining my lab and pursuing interdisciplinary research in speech, audio, and AI! I expect to have one to two fully funded Ph.D. openings beginning in Fall 2027. Admitted Ph.D. students receive full tuition and fee support, a monthly stipend, and health insurance coverage.

Potential research topics include:

• Child-centered speech and language AI: Robust speech and audio models for analyzing children’s speech, phoneme production, and developmental vocal behaviors

• Speech-LLM models and unified speech understanding: Next-generation speech AI systems that unify tasks such as speech recognition, diarization, and vocalization speech analysis in a single framework, especially for analyzing egocentric and naturalistic audio in complex and noisy environments.

• Human-centered audio AI Agent for healthcare applications: AI agents systems that extract clinically and socially meaningful signals from long-form audio or structured clinical interviews to support scalable screening and assessment.

Feel free to propose your own interests for research topics.

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications

• B.S. in Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Information Science, or a closely related discipline

• Strong technical background in one or more of the following: machine learning, deep learning, signal processing, speech processing, probability, and statistics

• Strong programming skills

• Strong written and oral communication skills in English

• Responsible, communicative, and able to work independently and collaboratively in a research environment

• Most importantly, genuine interest in and passionate about the research questions 

Preferred qualifications

The following qualifications are not required, but applicants with these backgrounds will be given priority consideration:

• M.S. in Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Information Science, or a closely related discipline

• Prior research or working experience in speech and audio

• Publications in leading speech and audio processing venues

Application Instructions/Interview Timeline

To help me manage the high volume of inquiries and ensure every candidate is evaluated fairly, I use a streamlined process as indicated the following:

1. Informal Assessment (optional): If you’d like to be considered for an initial fit, please read my latest review paper and/or a few other paper to identify research problems that interest you. Then please complete this [Google Form]. Strong candidates may be contacted by email and encouraged to submit a formal application. Please note that I do not conduct interviews at this stage. 

2. Official Application: Please mention my name as your potential advisor in your statement of purpose and submit your complete application package through the official webpage by the deadline (around December 2026). Our lab is housed within the College of Information Science, so your PhD degree will be in Information Science. The InfoSci Ph.D. program requires a minor, and I highly recommend Computer Science or Electrical and Computer Engineering to complement your research. 

3. Formal interviews will begin in early February 2027, and admission offer will follow the interview process.

Each semester, I advise one or two capstone teams focused on speech and audio processing. Project topics are assigned at the start of the semester. If you are interested, please feel free to email me with your CV, transcript, and a brief technical background.

I occasionally have volunteer or for credit long-term research positions for undergraduate students. If you are interested in working on speech and audio projects, please email me your CV, transcript, availability term, and the number of hours you are able to commit weekly. 

I currently do not accept students who are not at the University of Arizona.

I do not currently have funding for postdoctoral researchers.

I do not have funding for paid research assistant positions. When I have funding for student research, I prioritize allocating them to my doctoral students.

I do not have the authority to decide the assignment of teaching assistant or grading positions.