James (Jim) Flanagan

Originator of auto-directive microphone arrays for teleconferencing and pioneer of digital computers for acoustic signal processing, Flanagan made foundational contributions to voice communications and electro-acoustic systems. He received his B.S.E.E. degree from Mississippi State University, which he returned to complete after service in the U.S. Army 1944–46, and his S.M. and Sc.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from M.I.T. After 33 years with AT&T Bell Laboratories, Flanagan joined Rutgers University in 1990. At AT&T he served as Director of Information Principles Research and had responsibilities for departments conducting research in digital communications, signal processing, robotics, linguistics, acoustics, and networked information systems.

At Rutgers, he served dual roles as Vice President for Research and as Director of the Center for Advanced Information Processing (CAIP). In 2005 he retired as Board of Governors Professor Emeritus. His personal research centered in voice communications, computer techniques, and electro-acoustic systems. Flanagan contributed to signal coding algorithms for telecommunications and voice-mail systems, and to evolving techniques for automatic speech synthesis and recognition. He originated auto-directive microphone arrays for teleconferencing, and pioneered the use of digital computers for acoustic signal processing.

He published approximately 200 technical papers in scientific journals. He is the author of the research text Speech Analysis, Synthesis and Perception (Springer Verlag), which has appeared in five printings and two editions, and has been translated into Russian. Flanagan held over 50 U.S. patents in his specialty fields.

He received scientific awards including the U.S. National Medal of Science 1996 and the IEEE Medal of Honor 2005. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and to the National Academy of Sciences. He was also awarded Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Paris-Sud and from the Polytechnic University of Madrid.