Exploring the Science and Technology of Spoken Language Processing

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Associate Professor
Michael Proctor from Macquarie University’s Department of Linguistics recently spoke about his experience of working on the successful bid to host the Interspeech 2026 Conference in Sydney, on behalf of the Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA).

Why Bid for a Global Event?

Interspeech is the world’s largest and most comprehensive conference on the science and technology of spoken language processing. The conference will feature expert speakers, tutorials, oral and poster sessions, challenges, exhibitions, and satellite events, and will draw around 1,200 participants from around the world to Sydney. Interspeech conferences emphasize interdisciplinary approaches addressing all aspects of speech science and technology.

Associate Professor Proctor is Director of Research in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University, where he leads the Phonetics Laboratories. Under the leadership of Professor
Felicity Cox at Macquarie University, Associate Professor Proctor worked in partnership with Associate Professor Beena Ahmed and Associate Professor Vidhya Sethu at the University of NSW (UNSW) to prepare the bid on behalf of ASSTA.

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“Organizing a major international conference is an important service to the scientific community,” says Associate Professor Proctor. A primary motivation for bringing Interspeech 2026 to Sydney was to highlight the rich multilingual landscape of Australasia and refocus the energies of speech researchers and industry on under-resourced languages and speech in all its diversity. These themes guided the bid development and resonated with the international speech science community.

“Australasia has a long tradition of excellence in speech research but has only hosted Interspeech once before in Brisbane in 2008. Since then, Australia has grown and diversified into one of the most multilingual countries in the world, with new language varieties emerging in our vibrant cities,” stated Associate Professor Proctor.