Name: Cathy Pearl
Title: Speech Consultant
Company: Nuance
Contact:
cpearl@acm.org
How I arrived at my present job (academic and other influences): I've always been interested in natural language processing, and a few years ago I saw an ad for working with speech recognition at Nuance. I eventually applied and got the job. I studied Cognitive Science as an undergraduate, and I have a master's degree in Computer Science.
How I organize my day: In the morning I answer any urgent emails or voicemails. I often have customer or project meetings. I spend a lot of my days working on application design.
Amount of time spent working daily (at home and office): About 9 hours a day, except during crunch time, when it's more.
What I do to get myself thinking creatively: Sometimes I'll read over old designs, experiment by creating sample dialogs, or brainstorm with others.
My problem-solving strategy: It really depends on the problem... if it's technical, I'll do research on-line; some problems I just have to keep trying different methods until I reach a solution; and when I've exhausted my own attempts, I'll ask someone for suggestions.
What I do to relieve stress: Take a walk or a jog; read on-line journals.
My hero, mentor, or person I most admire and why: My mentor is my boss. She cares a lot about her employees and how they're doing. She encourages our careers. She's very technical and knows all about how things work at the company. She's willing to stand up and get issues resolved.
What I do to mentor those who work for me: When answering people's questions, I try to show them just enough so they can finish the task for themslves and learn.
How a negative event changed my life in a positive way: I decided to drop out of my PhD program with a master's degree. At the time I was disappointed in myself, but once I was back in the working world I was happy to be working on real projects and glad I had made the decision.
One event or decision in my life I wish I could go back and change: There were a couple of classes I took in graduate school because I was studying for the qualifying exams. Since I ended up getting a master's instead, I didn't actually need to take them, and I would have been a lot less stressed and happier taking different classes that aligned more with my interests.
What values are the most important to me and what I value in others: Respect for others, honesty, pride in your work, having a sense of humor.
What inspires, motivates, or gets me excited about my job on a daily basis: The technology. I've been at the company almost 3 years, and I still think speech recognition is incredibly cool.
Biography
UC San Diego - B.S. in Cognitive Science, minor in Artificial Intelligence
Indiana University - M.S. in Computer Science, master's thesis: "Natural
Language versus Graphical User Interfaces"
Ms. Pearl's research interests include human-computer interaction and natural language understanding.
This survey was completed: February 2002
Last Modified:
Location: www.acm.org/crossroads/dayinlife/bios/cathy_pearl.html