PROFESSOR IN THE SPOTLIGHT
FROM ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TO AUDIO: THOMAS DIETZEN’S CAREER IS DRIVEN BY SOUND When we think about technology that understands the world around us, our minds often go straight to cameras, images and vision-based artificial intelligence. But what if listening could be just as powerful as seeing? This question is at the heart of prof. Thomas Dietzen’s research. Professor at EAVISE (De Nayer Campus) since 2024, he uses his background in electrical engineering, medical audiology, industrial audio technology and advanced signal processing to focus on acoustic sensing and use sound to understand environments. homas’ love for audio started young. “As a teenager, I was already combining batteries, amplifiers and loudspeakers to put together portable systems and listen to 'hi-fi' music with my friends. Everyone has a portable speaker nowadays, but back then in 2002, that would impress people,” laughs Thomas Dietzen. His love for music and fascination with electroacoustics led Thomas to study Electrical Engineering at the University of Kaiserslautern (now RPTU), with a focus on communications and audio processing. His Erasmus exchange at Aalborg University in Denmark further deepened his love for audio and acoustics.
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After graduation, he joined the department of phoniatrics and audiology at Heidelberg University, where he helped develop hearing tests for newborns and researched how brain signals can be used to assess hearing function and auditory disorders. A year and a half later, Thomas moved on to Fraunhofer IIS, where he worked on maintaining and extending audio codec libraries. These software components help stream audio more efficiently by compressing and reconstructing raw sound, building on technologies historically associated with formats such as MP3. From audio quality improvement to acoustic sensing Through these roles, Thomas got a taste of the wide scope of audio signal processing, which only motivated him to delve deeper into the material in all its facets. A PhD was the logical next step in his journey. Thomas’ ambition led him to KU Leuven in 2014, where he started his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Toon van Waterschoot and worked with NXP Semiconductors to enhance speech signals recorded in noisy or reverberant spaces.
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After his PhD, his interests expanded. Instead of audio quality improvement, he started to focus on audio analysis and acoustic sensing. Where does a sound come from? What does the sound reveal about its source and the environment? Is the source moving, and if so, how? These questions are central to applications ranging from hearing aids to smart environments, vehicles and more; in short, every situation where sound helps us understand what is happening around us. Different applications, same drive The transition to automotive applications happened almost unexpectedly. While exploring academic positions, he came across a vacancy at De Nayer Campus focusing on algorithms for intelligent and autonomous vehicles. Prof. Thomas Dietzen: “At that point, I had no prior background in automotive research, but I immediately saw the possible benefits of acoustic sensing. Sound is still largely unexplored in automotive perception, while an autonomous car has to know what to do with sirens from emergency vehicles, strange engine noises or environmental sounds indicating danger. Automotive companies show increasing interest in this field, helping this line of research gain momentum.” However, the position at EAVISE doesn’t confine him to just automotive applications, as Thomas conducts research into different applications of acoustic sensing. This freedom and variation keep his job interesting.