PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Björn Granström

Björn Granström is a speech technology researcher whose work spans multilingual speech synthesis, speech databases, spoken dialogue and animated agents. He coauthored a multilingual text-to-speech module in 1982, the KTH speech database and an Italian text-to-speech system in 1989. At KTH, he contributed to a public spoken dialogue system and studied audiovisual prosody for animated agents. He served on ESCA’s Board from 1989 to 1997 and on ISCA’s Advisory Council from 2011 to 2018. In March 2025, he is a professor emeritus of speech communication at KTH.

Works
238
Citations
2,464
h-index
27
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1982

    A multilingual text-to-speech module

    In 1982, he coauthors a multi-language text-to-speech module with Rolf Carlson and Sheri Hunnicutt.

  2. 1989

    Speech databases and Italian synthesis

    In 1989, he coauthors The KTH speech database with Rolf Carlson and Lennart Nord; their speech analysis system stores sentence-sized files and segments and transcribes them semi-automatically. In 1989, he also coauthors a paper on a rule-based Italian text-to-speech system based on INFOVOX, with statistical rules for word stress and grapheme-to-phoneme conversion.

  3. 1989–1997

    Service on the ESCA Board

    From 1989 to 1997, he serves on the ESCA Board.

  4. 1998–1999

    The August dialogue system

    In 1998, he contributes to August, a Swedish multimodal spoken dialogue system with an animated agent, built with components developed at KTH’s Centre for Speech Technology. From August 1998 to March 1999, it operates daily for visitors at Stockholm Cultural Centre; its agent communicates through synthetic speech, facial expressions and head movements.

  5. 2006

    Audiovisual prosody for agents

    In 2006, he and David House present methods for collecting and modeling visual and acoustic data for audiovisual prosody. They show examples of head nods and eyebrow settings for animated agents in spoken-language systems.

  6. 2011–2018

    The ISCA Advisory Council

    From 2011 to 2018, he represents KTH on ISCA’s Advisory Council.

  7. March 2025

    Professor emeritus at KTH

    In March 2025, he is a professor emeritus of speech communication at KTH.

Career

  1. 1989–1997European Speech Communication AssociationBoard Member
  2. 1975–2013KTH Royal Institute of TechnologyProfessor Emeritus of Speech Communication

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Furhat: A Back-Projected Human-Like Robot Head for Multiparty Human-Machine Interaction2012 · Lecture notes in computer science · 297 citations
  2. Developments and paradigms in intonation research2001 · Speech Communication · 138 citations
  3. Two-formant Models, Pitch and Vowel Perception1975 · Elsevier eBooks · 128 citations
  4. EUROM-A Spoken Language Resource for the EU1995 · 106 citationsWith Adrian Fourcin, Isabel Trancoso and Lori Lamel
  5. Adapt - a multimodal conversational dialogue system in an apartment domain2000 · International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP) · 76 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 19 October 2026.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Our estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers rose from 2% to 32%Includes KTH Royal Institute of Technology. We estimate where leading AI researchers worked when their most-cited papers appeared. The company share rose from 2% in 1975–1979 to 32% in 2020–2024.
  3. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  4. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Björn Granström csauthors.net. Checked 18 October 2026.
  2. ISCA Archive - The KTH speech database isca-archive.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  3. ISCA Archive - A rule-based Italian text-to-speech system isca-archive.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  4. ISCA - Previous Board Members isca-speech.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  5. The August spoken dialogue system speech.kth.se. Checked 18 October 2026.
  6. ISCA Archive - Measuring and modeling audiovisual prosody for animated agents isca-archive.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  7. ISCA - Advisory Council isca-speech.org. Checked 18 October 2026.
  8. March 2025 - Fonetiklistan - lists3.sunet.se lists.sunet.se. Checked 18 October 2026.