Below is a study abroad experience report from Yosuke HIGUCHI (2nd year Doctor’s student, School of Fundamental Science and Engineering), who was able to go to Pittsburgh, USA to study at Carnegie Mellon University. This study abroad experience was possible due to support from Waseda University’s Top Global University project, “Waseda Goes Global”, referred to as TGU below.
Yosuke HIGUCHI
- Study Abroad University: Carnegie Mellon University
- Country/Region: Pittsburgh, USA, USA
- Visiting Period: April 2022 to July 2022
I conducted research on automatic speech recognition (ASR) under Prof. Shinji Watanabe at the Language Technologies Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. The host laboratory, Watanabe’s Audio and Voice (WAV) Lab, is known as one of the world’s leading research groups in the field of speech processing. All the WAV Lab members are outstanding speech experts gathered from around the world, and I was very fortunate to be a part of such an advanced environment. Throughout my time with the excellent CMU researchers, I aimed not only to explore new directions for my doctoral research but to consider my future career plan.
The research topic was about integrating a large-scale pre-trained language model into an end-to-end ASR system. End-to-end ASR aims to achieve direct conversion from speech to text using a single deep neural network. As speech and text are completely different information with distinct characteristics, it requires an effective neural network design capable of extracting linguistic information from speech. To this end, in this study, we proposed a new formulation of end-to-end ASR that beneficially exploits linguistic knowledge obtained from a large-scale pre-trained language model. Experimental results demonstrated that our approach outperforms conventional ones with higher recognition accuracy. We wrote a paper on our findings and submitted it to a top-level international conference. In addition, I collaborated with the WAV Lab members on other research topics and contributed to publishing a total of four papers at international conferences.
Campus life at CMU was an amazing experience surrounded by hard-working students dedicating to academic and research activities. The large, green campus, studying and meeting spaces everywhere, and free shuttle buses that run until midnight allowed me to focus on my research. (Well, I have to say that there were few entertainment places around the campus.) Due to COVID-19, it was a little unfortunate that I could not have enough chances to get together with the WAV Lab members in person. However, through some irregular social events (dinners, BBQs, etc.), I was able to make valuable connections with various researchers.
I used Airbnb and stayed at a shared house located in Squirrel Hills South. The place was very convenient in that it was close to the campus (30-min. walk/15-min. bus ride) and there were a variety of supermarkets and restaurants in the area. The bad thing was that I faced some troubles, such as a noisy neighbor and bugs in my room, but I guess they have become good memories. The area around the campus was safe, and I did not have any problems walking home late at night and going sightseeing early in the morning.
One major difference that I felt the research style at CMU was different from Japan’s was in the attitude of always trying to help other researchers. For conducting my research at WAV Lab, the members advised me on many things, from using computational resources to deriving the mathematical formulation of the proposed approach. All the WAV Lab members always tried to further improve others’ research by sharing the knowledge and tools with one another. I deeply understood how new research ideas could result from not just focusing on your own research but proactively outputting one’s experiences to other researchers. Such an awareness of collaboration is something I feel could be further strengthened at my laboratory at Waseda University, and I will try to use my experience at CMU to help improve it.
Through this research abroad experience, I have started to take into consideration a career path outside of Japan. CMU students, including the members of WAV Lab, aspired to become internationally active. Through interactions with them, I also felt that I want to become a researcher can be active and succeed in the world. Including my experience at CMU, it has been always exciting to work with international researchers with different backgrounds and perspectives. I will continue making efforts to put myself in such a stimulating environment.
I deeply appreciate the TGU program for providing me with a valuable opportunity and support for studying abroad. Though it had been difficult to travel overseas due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program provided sufficient financial and safety support, allowing me to focus on my research without any worries. Lastly, I sincerely thank Mr. Nishimura and Ms. Ikeda from Waseda University for their careful and precise assistance with completing my program.
