PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Janet Baker

Also known as Janet M. Baker, Janet MacIver Baker

Janet Baker is a speech recognition researcher and entrepreneur whose work includes continuous dictation systems. She earned degrees at Tufts and Carnegie Mellon and worked in speech recognition at IBM and Verbex. She and James Baker co-founded Dragon Systems in 1982, where she served first as president and later as CEO and chair; the company released Dragon NaturallySpeaking, a continuous dictation system, in 1997 and was sold in 2000. She co-authored a 1992 paper on Dragon's continuous speech research, founded Saras Institute in 2000, and received an ISCA Fellowship in 2010 and the IEEE Flanagan Award in 2012. As of October 2026, she is a research affiliate in the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces group.

Works
48
Citations
1,801
h-index
13

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1970s

    Degrees from Tufts and CMU

    She earns a BS at Tufts and completes a computer science PhD at Carnegie Mellon in 1975.

  2. 1974–1982

    Research at IBM and Verbex

    She joins IBM's continuous speech recognition group in 1974 and serves as Verbex's vice president for research from 1979 to 1982.

  3. 1982–2000

    Building Dragon Systems

    She co-founds Dragon Systems with James Baker in 1982 and serves first as president, then as CEO and chair. Dragon releases Dragon NaturallySpeaking, a continuous dictation system, in 1997; the company is sold in an all-stock deal in 2000.

  4. 1992

    A Dragon speech paper

    She co-authors a paper on continuous speech recognition at Dragon Systems under the DARPA SLS Program in 1992.

  5. 2000–2007

    Founding Saras Institute

    She founds Saras Institute in 2000 and serves as a visiting scholar at MIT's Dibner Institute from 2005 to 2007.

  6. 2010

    An ISCA fellowship

    ISCA names her a fellow in 2010 for her contributions to speech recognition and service to the speech community.

  7. 2012

    The IEEE Flanagan Award

    She and James Baker receive the 2012 IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award for their contributions to automatic speech recognition.

  8. As of October 2026

    A research role at MIT

    As of October 2026, she is a research affiliate in the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces group.

Sources and credits

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  1. History of Speech and Language Technology sarasinstitute.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. Teaching a Computer to Hear now.tufts.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. Janet Baker — MIT Media Lab media.mit.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. Research in Continuous Speech Recognition at Dragon Systems Under the DARPA SLS Program aclanthology.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. SPS Members Receive 2012 IEEE Awards signalprocessingsociety.org. Checked 14 October 2026.