Laura Tomokiyo Project Scientist Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

I am a project scientist at the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, directing the GigaPan Youth Exchange and Civil War Trails portion of the Global Connection Project.

Previously, I was Principal Research Scientist and Director of Language Development at Cepstral, LLC, a company specializing in text-to-speech synthesis.

I attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SB 1991), and Carnegie Mellon University (MS 1996; PhD 2001).

I come to Robotics with a long involvment in spoken language technologies, spanning the breadth of the field from phonetics and sociolinguistic issues in human speech and automatic speech recognition (ASR) to machine translation, text learning, text-to-speech synthesis, and dialogue systems.

Recently, my interest has turned to using explorable imagery, social networking, and other forms of new media in language learning, documentation, and revitalization. Out of this general thread has emerged my current research focus: the role of new media in building cross-curricular connections and supporting participatory learning, particularly in international and cross-cultural contexts. The GigaPan imaging and interactive online platforms, developed at CMU in collaboration with NASA, figure prominently in my work.

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