PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Yoshinori Sagisaka

Also known as Sagisaka Yoshinori

Yoshinori Sagisaka is a speech and language researcher whose work spans speech synthesis, recognition, translation, prosody and perception. Born in Tokyo in 1951, he earned a physics degree at Waseda in 1973, completed a master's in mathematical physics in 1975 and joined NTT. In 1998, he coauthored ATR-MATRIX, a Japanese-to-English system that recognized natural Japanese and output synthesized speech. He became a Waseda professor in 2001, modeled conversational prosody and started AESOP, a consortium for Asian English speech research. As of October 2026, he is Professor Emeritus in Waseda University's Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 1951–1975

    Physics and a master's

    Born in Tokyo in 1951, he graduates in physics from Waseda University in 1973 and completes a master's in mathematical physics there in 1975. He joins NTT's Musashino Electrical Communication Laboratory in 1975.

  2. 1986–1993

    Research at ATR

    NTT seconds him to ATR's Automatic Translation Telephone Research Institute in 1986. He visits Edinburgh University's Centre for Speech Technology Research in 1988 and AT&T Bell Labs in 1992, then transfers to ATR's Speech Translation Telecommunications Research Institute in 1993 and leads its First Laboratory. His work spans speech recognition, speech synthesis, translation, prosody and perception.

  3. 1998

    The ATR-MATRIX translator

    In 1998, he coauthors ATR-MATRIX, a Japanese-to-English speech translation system that recognizes natural Japanese and outputs synthesized English speech. Its hotel-reservation implementation runs nearly in real time.

  4. 2001

    Professor at Waseda

    Waseda appoints him professor in its Graduate School of Global Information and Telecommunication Studies in 2001.

  5. 2004

    Speech synthesis with attitude

    At Speech Prosody 2004, he presents “Speech synthesis with attitude” with Takumi Yamashita and Yoko Kokenawa. The paper analyzes F0 patterns in expressions of attitude and degree and uses them to model natural conversational prosody.

  6. 2006–2009

    Conversational prosody project

    From 2006 to 2009, he works with Tetsunori Kobayashi and Masaaki Nonda on speech synthesis that controls conversational prosody through word-impression attributes. Perceptual tests favor the proposed conversational prosody over reading-style prosody.

  7. 2008

    Starting AESOP

    He initiates AESOP (Asian English Speech cOrpus Project) at Waseda in 2008 to collect common speech data on features shared across Asian English and features specific to participating countries. He serves as its convener through 2013.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor Emeritus at Waseda

    As of October 2026, he is Professor Emeritus in Waseda University's Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Career

  1. Since 2001Waseda UniversityProfessor
  2. 1992Bell Labs
  3. 1988University of Edinburgh
  4. 1986–1993Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute InternationalHead of the First Laboratory
  5. 1986–1993ATR
  6. From 1975NTT

Education

  1. 1975Waseda UniversityMaster's in mathematical physics
  2. 1973Waseda UniversityPhysics degree

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Waseda University. 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.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Waseda University. 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.
  3. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes AT&T. 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.
  4. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Edinburgh. 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.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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

  1. ICC | 匂坂芳典 ntticc.or.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Details of a Researcher - SAGISAKA, Yoshinori w-rdb.waseda.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. ISCA Archive - A Japanese-to-English speech translation system: ATR-MATRIX isca-archive.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. ISCA Archive - Speech synthesis with attitude isca-archive.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Details of a Researcher - HONDA, Masaaki w-rdb.waseda.jp. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. LINGUIST List 26.4037: FYI: AESOP-ILAS Corpora Release Announcement linguistlist.org. Checked 21 October 2026.