PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Bernard Merialdo

Bernard Merialdo is a researcher whose work links probabilistic language models, speech recognition and multimedia analysis. He worked on probabilistic speech recognition at IBM France before joining EURECOM, where he led the Multimedia Department and co-edited TV Content Analysis: Techniques and Applications in 2012. His 1994 text-tagging paper earned ACL's Test-of-Time Award in 2019, and he coauthored a 2018 paper that adapted Transformer translation to multimodal use. He joined SténoMédia in 2023 to contribute to new versions of Stentor; he helped create French stenotype transcription software TASF and developed TIRO's transcription engine. As of October 2026, he serves as an honorary president of the International Conference on Content-Based Multimedia Indexing.

Now at
SténoMédia

Timeline

  1. 1994

    Probabilistic text tagging

    In 1994, he publishes "Tagging English Text with a Probabilistic Model" in Computational Linguistics.

  2. 1995

    An IBM language-model patent

    A patent published in 1995 names him as an inventor of a method for adaptively generating application-dependent language models for intelligent systems.

  3. 2002

    Chairing ACM Multimedia

    In 2002, he serves as general chair of ACM Multimedia in Juan-les-Pins, France.

  4. By 2012

    Professor and TV book editor

    By 2012, he is a professor and head of EURECOM's Multimedia Department, where his research covers multimedia analysis, processing, indexing and filtering; he studies at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and earns a PhD from Paris University. Before joining EURECOM to set up the department, he works for more than ten years at IBM France's Scientific Center on probabilistic techniques for large-vocabulary speech recognition. In 2012, he co-edits TV Content Analysis: Techniques and Applications.

  5. 2018

    MeMAD at WMT18

    In 2018, he coauthors The MeMAD Submission to the WMT18 Multimodal Translation Task, which adapts the Transformer architecture for neural machine translation to a multimodal setting.

  6. 2019

    An ACL Test-of-Time Award

    In 2019, he wins ACL's Test-of-Time Award for his 1994 paper "Tagging English Text with a Probabilistic Model."

  7. 2023

    SténoMédia and transcription tools

    In 2023, he joins SténoMédia's team to contribute to new versions of Stentor. He helps create TASF, an automatic French stenotype transcription program, and develops TIRO's transcription engine as a university professor.

  8. As of October 2026

    CBMI honorary president

    As of October 2026, he serves as an honorary president of the International Conference on Content-Based Multimedia Indexing alongside Georges Quénot.

Career

  1. Since 2023SténoMédiaResearcher
  2. EURECOMProfessor and Department Head

Education

  1. École Normale Supérieure
  2. University of ParisPhD

From the biography.

  1. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes IBM. We estimate that 468 of the 2,011 people shaping AI who left a university for a company (23%) later returned to a university after a median of 5 years, and 163 of 829 (20%) made the reverse round trip.
  2. Google alumni have founded or led 133 other organizations, more than any other AI labIncludes IBM. We estimate that alumni of 17 major AI labs went on to found or lead 350 other organizations, including 226 they founded, and we trace 472 career moves directly between 23 labs since 2010.
  3. Universities keep AI researchers for a median of 6 years, compared with 2 years at frontier labsIncludes IBM. Across 15,811 dated work stays (6,529 people), median role tenure runs from 6 years at universities to 2 years at frontier labs. We compare all five organization types, starting decades from the 1970s to the 2020s, and the organizations that keep people longest.
  4. People shaping AI work at a median of 3 organizations over a career: 3 for university starters and institute and lab starters, versus 2 for company startersIncludes IBM. Across 6,853 people shaping AI with a dated work role, we estimate a median of 3 parent organizations over a career (mean 3.6), comparing role groups, starting sectors and starting decades from the 1950s to 2020–2026.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Bernard Merialdo yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. ACL Test-of-Time Papers Award Recipients - Admin Wiki aclweb.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. US5444617A - Method and apparatus for adaptively generating field of application dependent language models for use in intelligent systems - Google Patents patents.google.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. ACM Multimedia Conference | ACM SIGMM - the Special Interest Group on Multimedia sigmm.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. TV Content Analysis: Techniques and Applications - Google Books books.google.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. The MeMAD Submission to the WMT18 Multimodal Translation Task - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. La société | SténoMédia stenomedia.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Steering Committee - IEEE CBMI 2026 cbmi2026.sciencesconf.org. Checked 21 October 2026.