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Carol Espy-Wilson honored as Innovator of the Year

“Innovators are people with vision. With the ability to see a need and fill it. With the courage to make change and the stamina to await the results.”

Professor Carol Espy-Wilson (ECE/ISR) has been honored as a 2010 Maryland Innovator of the Year, for "Multi-Pitch Tracking in Adverse Environments," her invention that radically improves sound quality over cell phones and in hearing aids, among other devices. The awards are sponsored by the Maryland Daily Record.

Previous technologies work by taking in all of a sound and then attempting to filter out anything that is not speech. Espy-Wilson's innovation is a technology that, she says, "pulls the speech out of the noise" by focusing on the characteristics that make speech unique. "We don't focus on the noise at all," she explains. "We focus on the speech."

Espy-Wilson founded Omnispeech LLC in 2009 to bring the technology to market. She is chief technology officer.

About the Innovator of the Year awards
The Innovator of the Year awards program recognizes Maryland residents and companies who have introduced innovations that have had a positive effect on their business, industry or community.

Nominees can be individuals or companies from any sector. The innovation can be a product, a service, a program or a process. The only requirements are that the nominee live or work in Maryland and that the innovation was introduced in the 12 months previous to the deadline.

The award ceremony and reception took place at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Espy-Wilson is one of 25 winners statewide.

Published October 24, 2010