PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Yannis Stylianou

Also known as Stylianou Yannis

Yannis Stylianou is a speech-processing researcher whose work runs from adaptive sinusoidal models for speech analysis to neural text-to-speech. After a signal-processing Ph.D. from ENST in Paris in 1996, he worked at AT&T Labs Research and Bell Labs before joining the University of Crete in 2002. From 2013 to 2018 he led the Speech Technology Group at Toshiba Cambridge Research Lab, and in August 2018 he joined Apple in Cambridge, UK. A 2013 paper he coauthored on speech modifications in noise won the Speech Communication best-paper award in 2018, and ISCA named him a Fellow in 2019. He is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Crete and heads its Speech Signal Processing Laboratory.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 1991–2002

    Paris doctorate, then AT&T Labs

    He earns a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1991, then an M.Sc. in 1992 and a Ph.D. in 1996 in signal processing at the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST) in Paris. From 1996 he is a Senior Technical Staff Member at AT&T Labs Research, and in 2001 he moves to Bell Labs at Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, New Jersey.

  2. Since 2002

    Joining the University of Crete

    He joins the Computer Science Department at the University of Crete in 2002 and spends the academic year 2011–2012 as a visiting professor at AHOLAB, University of the Basque Country, in Bilbao. Since 2014, he organizes an international Summer School on Speech Processing in Crete every year.

  3. 2013–2018

    Leading Toshiba's speech group

    From 2013 to July 2018, he leads the Speech Technology Group at Toshiba Cambridge Research Lab in Cambridge, UK. In 2015, he gives a guest lecture at TU Graz on adaptive sinusoidal models and their applications in speech processing.

  4. August 2018

    Joining Apple in Cambridge

    He joins Apple in August 2018, based in Cambridge, UK, while keeping his professorship at Crete. In February 2020, he is a Research Manager there and gives an Imperial College London seminar that surveys concatenative, statistical and neural text-to-speech systems.

  5. 2018

    A best paper and SLT chair

    In 2018, a 2013 Speech Communication paper that he coauthors with Martin Cooke, Catherine Mayo, Cassia Valentini-Botinhao, Bastian Sauert and Yan Tang, on the intelligibility benefit of speech modifications in known noise conditions, wins the journal's best-paper award for 2013–2016. He is General Chair of the IEEE Spoken Language Technology Workshop (SLT 2018) in Athens in December 2018.

  6. 2019

    ISCA Fellow, class of 2019

    He joins the ISCA Fellows class of 2019, honored at the INTERSPEECH 2019 opening ceremony with Christian Wellekens, Mark Gales, Jennifer Cole, Martine Adda-Decker and Valerie Hazan.

  7. 2021–2022

    Neural TTS and vocal effort

    In July 2021, he lectures at the Speech Processing Courses in Crete, whose 2021 theme is Inclusive Neural Speech Synthesis. In 2022, he coauthors with Tuomo Raitio, Petko Petkov, Jiangchuan Li, Muhammed Shifas and Andrea Davis a neural text-to-speech method that models natural vocal effort variation to improve the intelligibility of synthetic speech in noise, presented at Interspeech 2022.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and lab head at Crete

    He is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Crete, where he has been since 2002, and heads its Speech Signal Processing Laboratory. His research interests cover speech, audio, statistical and biomedical signal processing and bioacoustics.

Career

  1. Since 2002University of CreteProfessor of Computer Science
  2. From 2018AppleResearch Manager
  3. 2013–2018ToshibaHead of Speech Technology Group
  4. 2011–2012University of the Basque CountryVisiting professor
  5. 2001–2002Bell Labs
  6. 1996–2001AT&TSenior Technical Staff Member

Education

  1. 1996National School of TelecommunicationsPhD in signal processing
  2. 1992National School of TelecommunicationsM.Sc. in signal processing
  3. 1991National Technical University of AthensDiploma in Electrical Engineering

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Yannis Stylianou. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes Yannis Stylianou. 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.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Crete. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Crete. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. MMI Lab - Yannis Stylianou csd.uoc.gr. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Guest Lecture: Yannis Stylianou — SPSC @ TU Graz spsc.tugraz.at. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Yannis Stylianou | Computer Science Department - University of Crete csd.uoc.gr. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. 2021 Speech Processing Courses in Crete - Lecturers csd.uoc.gr. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Talk on Speech Synthesis by Yannis Stylianou, Apple | Imperial College London imperial.ac.uk. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. IEEE SLTC Newsletter - September 2018 signalprocessingsociety.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. ISCA Fellow Program isca-speech.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Interspeech 2022 - Apple Machine Learning Research machinelearning.apple.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Vocal effort modeling in neural TTS for improving the intelligibility of synthetic speech in noise arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. SSPL - Speech Signal Processing Laboratory csd.uoc.gr. Checked 20 October 2026.