Dr. Leena Mary

Adjunct Professor
Indian Institute of Information Technology Kottayam
Valavoor P.O, Pala
Kottayam - 686635, Kerala, India.
Email: leena at iiitkottayam dotac.in
Hello at: 00 91 04822202143

Honours and Achievements :

• Recipient of Outstanding Researcher 2021 award instituted by IEEE Kerala Section
• Recipient of Researcher of the year award 2015 instituted by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) among its affiliated institutes which carried a citation, a gold medal and a research grant of 15 lakhs
• Recipient of Best paper award for the paper titled "Multiple complementary features for voice activity detection" authored by Ginsha Elizabeth George and Leena Mary in International Conference on Emerging Research Areas, Kottayam, India, April 2011 (AICERA 2011)
• Travel Fund by KSCSTE to present technical paper at IEEE Region Conference TENCON 2018 held at Jeju Island, South Korea
• Travel grant by TEQIP to present technical paper in International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2013 held at Vancouver, Canada
• Travel grant through federal funding to attend and present research paper at International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems (ICCNS) 2004 organized by Boston University, USA
• As chairperson of advisory board and subject expert, took lead role for the compilation of Concise AI Encyclopaedia in Malayalam, published by Sarvavijanakosham Institute, Government of Kerala, March 2025

Work Experience:

• Thirty two years of experience in teaching in Government Engineering Colleges in Kerala (Department of Technical Education, Government of Kerala)
• Officiated as Head of the Department (2015-17 at RIT Kottayam, 2017-19 at GEC Idukki and as Dean Research (2021-22)
• Retired from Government service as Principal Government Engineering College, Kozhikode Mar. 2023.

Education :

• Ph.D, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Thesis titled: "Multilevel Implicit Features for Language and Speaker Recognition", IIT Madras, 2006.
• M.Tech., Microwave Engineering, Kerala University, 1990
• B.Tech., Electronics and Communication Engineering, Mangalore University,1988

Sponsored Projects – Completed (12 nos.) Ongoing (1 no.):

• Development of a speech recognition assisted app for animated stories and evaluating its efficacy in concept learning in concept learning among Malayalam speaking children with intellectual disability, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysore Nov. 2024 - Ongoing (PI)
• Modifying the design of automated Malayalam Articulation Test to improve accuracy for evaluation of children with severe articulatory disorders, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysore Jan 2022-Apr. 2023 (PI).
• Development of Speech Recognition Based Audio Search and Learning tools in Malayalam, Centre for Engineering Research and Development (CERD), (Researcher of the Year Grant of KTU) Aug. 2016 (PI)
• Automation of Malayalam articulation test using speech recognition techniques, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysore Nov 2018-Dec 2019 (PI)
• A System for Traffic Data Collection, Vehicle Classification and Head Light Violation Detection Using Audio Visual Cues, Transportation Research Centre, College of Engineering Trivandrum (Govt. Of Kerala) Mar. 2018-Mar. 2020 (PI)
• Forensic Speaker Recognition-Coping with channel mismatch, noise, voice disguise and VoIP Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE), 2015-2019) (PI)
• Automatic language identification for Indian languages using phonotactics and prosody, TEQIP phase II, 2015-16 (Co-PI)
• Audio visual cues for speed estimation and vehicle classification CTransE (Center for Excellence in Transportation), NIT Thiruchirappally, 2014-2016 (Co-PI)
• Extension of Advanced Signal Processing Research Lab at RIT Kottayam, CERD, KTU, 2014-2016 (PI)
• Study of vehicle sound signature for characterization of heterogeneous traffic, AICTE- RPS, 2012-14 (Co-PI)
• Development of prosodically guided phonetic engine for searching speech databases in Indian Languages Department of Electronics Information Technology, Govt. of India, 2012-15 (PI)
• Establishment of Advanced Signal Processing Research Lab at RIT Kottayam (First phase), CERD, KTU, 2011-2013 (PI)
• Effect of Mimicked Speech on Automatic Speaker Verification, Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE), 2011-14 (PI).

Ph. D Guidance – Awarded (5), Pursuing (4):

• Deekshitha G.-" Multistage spoken term detection for searching speech databases"-APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University -with CERD Ph. D Research Fellowship 2015-19 (Ph. D awarded in Jul 2021)
• Starlet Ben Alex –“ Multilevel Prosodic Features for Automatic Emotion and Speaker Recognition from Speech using Deep Learning Techniques” -APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University -with CERD Ph. D Research Fellowship 2016-19 (Ph. D Awarded in Nov 2021)
• Sreekumar G. , “Design, Implementation and Evaluation of High Resolution DoA Estimation Algorithms in Phased Arrays Using Chirp Signals”, M. G University (Ph. D awarded in Mar 2020)
• Sreehari R. “Study on Features for Forensic Automatic Speaker Recognition", Kerala University (Ph. D Awarded in Apr, 2023)
• Anu George ,"Automatic language identification for Indian languages using phonotactics and prosody", M. G. University (Pursuing)
• Anuja Prasad S., “Machine Learning Techniques for Vehicle Detection and Classification in Heterogeneous Traffic Video collected using Probe vehicle”, APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (Ph. D awarded in Dec 2024)
• Smitha Paul – “ Evaluation of disordered speech using machine learning”, APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University – 2020 (Pursuing).
• Pillai Praveen Thulasidharan “Heuristic Approaches for Giga-pixel Whole Slide Image Analysis in Digital Pathology” IIIT Kottayam (Pursuing)
• Neethu C. T. “Clone Identification of Indian Rubber Plants Using Image Processing and Machine Learning Techniques”, IIIT Kottayam with DST WISE Fellowship (Pursuing)

Publications

Google Schoolar:https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=4ajjNzgAAAAJ&hl=en

Books / Monographs (4 nos.)

1. Extraction and representation of prosody for speaker, speech, and language recognition, Edition 1 Springer briefs in Speech Technology, Springer, Netherlands, 2012, ISBN 978-1—4614-1158-1
2. Prosodic features for speaker recognition Book Chapter 13, Forensic Speaker Recognition-Law Enforcement and Counter-Terrorism, Springer-Verlag, New York, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4614-0263-3
3. Extraction of Prosody for Automatic Speaker, Language, Emotion and Speech Recognition978-3-319-91170-0, Edition 2, Springer briefs in Speech Technology, Springer, Netherlands, 2018, 978-3-319-91170-0
4. Searching Speech Databases: Features, Techniques, Evaluation Measures, Springer briefs in Speech Technology, Springer, Netherlands, 2018, 978-3-319-97760-7

Journal Publications (20 nos.)

1. Anuja Prasad S., Leena Mary and Bino I. Koshy, “Detection and Classification of Vehicles using Audio Visual Cues” accepted for publication in Multimedia Tools and Applications (SCIE), Springer, 2023
2. Starlet Ben Alex and Leena Mary, ““Variational Autoencoder for Prosody-Based Speaker Recognition”, ETRI Journal (SCIE), Wiley, 2022
3. Deekshitha G. and Leena Mary, Multilingual Broad Phoneme Recognition and Language-independent Spoken Term Detection for Low-resourced Languages, Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences, Elsevier (SCIE), 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksuci.2021.08.012
4. Sreehari R. and Leena Mary, Automatic Short Utterance Speaker Recognition using Stationary Wavelet Coefficients of Pitch Synchronised LP Residual, International Journal of Speech Technology, Springer (SCOPUS Indexed), Sep. 2021, DOI: 10.1007/s10772-021-09895-z
5. Deekshitha. G and Leena Mary, A Two-Stage Spoken Term Detection System for Under, Resourced Languages, IET Signal Processing, 2020 (SCI/SCIE),Jul. 2020 DOI: 10.1049/iet-spr.2019.0131
6. Deekshitha. G and Leena Mary, Multilingual Spoken Term Detection: A Review, International Journal of Speech Technology, Springer (SCOPUS Indexed), DOI: 10.1007/s10772-020-09732-9, Jul. 2020
7. Starlet Ben Alex, Ben P. Babu and Leena Mary, Attention and Feature Selection for Automatic Speech Emotion Recognition Using Utterance and Syllable-Level Prosodic Features, Circuits, Systems and Signal Processing, Springer (SCIE), 1-29, 2020
8. Sreekumar G., Leena Mary and Unnikrishnan A, Beam-forming of broad-band QFM signals using generalized time-frequency transform, The Journal of Electronics, Taylor and Francis (SCI), DOI:10.1080/00207217.2019.1666307
9. Sreekumar G., Leena Mary and Unnikrishnan A, Performance Analysis of Fractional Fourier Domain Beam-Forming Methods for Sensor Arrays, Smart Science, Taylor & Francis (Scopus Indexed), vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 28 - 38, January 2019
10. Sreekumar G., Leena Mary and Unnikrishnan A, Experimental verification of quadratic chirp detection using modified fractional Fourier transform, The Journal of Acoustical Society of India ((DRDO Refereed Journal), Vol. 45, No. 3, 2018 (pp. 141-149)
11. Sreekumar G., Leena Mary and Unnikrishnan A, Doa Estimation of Broad-Banded Linear and Quadratic Chirps Using Nested and Co-Prime Arrays, International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering (UGC Refereed Journal), Vol.-6, Issue-7, July 2018, pp.49-57
12. Leena Mary, Anil Antony, Ben P. Babu, Automatic Syllabification of Speech Signal using Vowel Onset Points and STE Valleys, International Journal of Speech Technology (IJST) Springer (Scopus indexed), 2017
13. Jubin James, Leena Mary, Real Time Phonetic Engine for Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech in Malayalam, IETE Journal of Research (SCI Indexed), 2015
14. Sophia Susan George, Anil P. Antony and Leena Mary, Prosody Based Speaker Verification System- Effect of Voice disguise, International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology, Vol. 3, Issue 12, ISSN: 2278-0181, Dec 2014
15. Deekshitha G, Jubin James Thennattil and Leena Mary, Implementation of Automatic Segmentation of Speech Signal for Phonetic Engine in Malayalam, International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR), ISSN: 2321-0869, Volume-2, Issue-11, Nov 2014
16. Deekshitha G. and Leena Mary, Broad Phoneme Classification using Signal based Features, International Journal on Soft Computing (IJSC), Vol. 5, No. 3, Nov 2014
17. Jobin George, Anila Cyriac, Bino I. Koshy, Leena Mary, Exploring sound signature for vehicle detection and classification using ANN, Int. Journal on Soft Computing, ISSN:2229-6735 (online), IISN:2229/7103 (print), 2013
18. Leena Mary, K. K. Anish Babu, Aju Joseph, Analysis and Detection of mimicked speech using prosodic features, International Journal of Speech Technology (IJST), Springer (Scopus Indexed),15(3), pp. 407-417, DOI: 10.1007/s 10772-012-9163-3, Sep. 2012
19. Ginsha Elizbeth George, Leena Mary, Multiple complimentary features for voice activity detection, Int. Journal on Emerging Technologies, 2011
20. Leena Mary, B. Yegnanarayana, Extraction and representation of prosodic features for language and speaker recognition, Speech Communication (Elsevier) (SCI Indexed), 2008

Papers in international conference proceedings (46 nos.)

• Laxmi Priya Harshitha T., Lekshmi M. Nair and Leena Mary, “Forensic Automatic Speaker Recognition: Coping with Impersonated Speech” IEEE International Conference on Signal Processing, Informatics, Communication and Energy Systems (SPICES), Sep 2024
• Drisya C and Leena Mary, “Detection of Motorcyclists without Helmet from Traffic Video using Deep Learning Techniques”, IEEE INDICON, Kochi, Kerala, Nov 2022.
• Devi Krishna, Leena Mary and Anu George, “Automatic Severity Evaluation of Articulation Disorder in Speech using Dynamic Time Warping”, Fourth International Conference on Microelectronics, Signals and Systems ICMSS 2021, Kollam, Kerala, Nov 2021.
• Greeshma Unnikrishnan, Anu George and Leena Mary, “Non-uniform Region Based Features for Automatic Language Identification” Fourth International Conference on Microelectronics, Signals and Systems ICMSS 2021, Kollam, Kerala, Nov 2021.
• Alishamol K. S., Fousiya T. T., Jasmine Babu K., Sooryadas M. and Leena Mary, “System for infant cry emotion recognition using DNN”, International Conference on Smart Systems and Inventive Technology (ICSSIT)”, Thirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, pp. 865-870, Aug. 2020
• Betty Kurian, V. R Sreehari and Leena Mary, “ PNCC for Forensic Speaker Recognition”, International Conference on Microelectronics, Signals & Systems (ICMSS), Kollam, Kerala, 2019.
• Remya Susan John, Starlet Ben Alex, Sinith M S and Leena Mary, “Significance of Prosodic Features For Automatic Emotion Recognition”, International Conference on Microelectronics, Signals & Systems (ICMSS), Kollam, Kerala, 2019.
• Rosemol Thomas, Anu George and Leena Mary, “ Language Identification Using Deep Neural Network For Indian Languages”, International Conference on Microelectronics, Signals & Systems (ICMSS), Kollam, Kerala, 2019.
• Abidha Abdul Karim Rawther and Leena Mary, “Design and Implementation of Sobel Edge Detection in FPGA”, International Conference on Microelectronics, Signals & Systems (ICMSS), Kollam, Kerala, 2019.
• S. Anuja Prasad and L. Mary, "A Comparative Study of Different Features for Vehicle Classification," 2019 International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Data Science (ICCIDS), Chennai, India, 2019, pp. 1-5.
• Sangeetha S, Deekshitha G, Anu George and Leena Mary, “ Language Independent Broad Phoneme Classification”, IEEE Int. Conf. on Intelligent Computing, Instrumentation and Control Technologies (ICICICT), Kannur, Kerala, July. 2019, pp. 1-6.
• Starlet Ben Alex, Ben P. Babu and Leena Mary, “Utterance and Syllable Level Prosodic Features for Automatic Emotion Recognition”, IEEE International Conference RAICS, Nov 2018
• Sreehari V. R. and Leena Mary , “Automatic Speaker Recognition using Stationary Wavelet Transform Coefficient of LP residual”, IEEE Region 10 International Conference TENCON, South Korea, Oct 2018, pp-1601-1606.
• Deekshitha G. and Leena Mary , “Speech Signal Based Broad Phoneme Classification and Search Space Reduction for Spoken Term Detection” IEEE Region 10 International Conference TENCON, South Korea, Oct 2018, pp-1607-1612.
• Linta Antony, Sreekumar G., Leena Mary and Unnikrishnan A., “Novel Rank Enhancing Algorithm for 2D Sparse Arrays with Contiguous Coarrays”, 8th International Conference on Advances in Computing and Communication (ICACC-2018), Procedia Computer Science 143 (2018) 277–284.
• Shinimol Salim, Deekshitha G., Anu George and Leena Mary, Automatic Spotting of Vowels, Nasals and Approximants from Continuous Speech, International Conference on Control, Communication and Computing (IC4), Trivandrim, July 2018.
• Smitha Paul, Ben P. Babu and Leena Mary, Assessment of Articulation Disorder using Objective Quality Measures, International Conference on ICCPCCT-2018, IEEE International Conference on Control,Power, Communication and Computing Technologies, Kannur, India, vol.2, pp. 604-609.
• Smitha Paul, Sreelakshmi K R, Anu George and Leena Mary, "Automation of Malayalam Articulation Test using Automatic Speech Recognition Techniques," Workshop on Speech Processing for Voice, Speech and Hearing Disorders (WSPD 2018), Satellite event of Interspeech 2018, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, India.
• Deekshitha G, Hansa Hathoon K I, & Leena Mary, “A Novel Two-Stage System for Spotting Fricative and Plosive Regions from Continuous Speech”, International conference on Communication and Signal Processing, April 2018.
• Deekshitha G, Hansa Hathoon K I, & Leena Mary, “Automatic Spotting of Plosives and Fricatives from Speech signals”, International Conference on Research Trends in Engineering, Science & Technology (IER-RTEST’17), July 2017.
• Deekshitha G. and Leena Mary, “A study on Audio Search Techniques”, International Conference on Signal and Speech Processing (ICSSP), Kollam, 2016, pp-267-271.
• Veena Mohanan and Leena Mary, “Prosody Based Emotion Recognition using SVM”, International Conference on Signal and Speech Processing (ICSSP), Kollam, 2016.
• Christin Daniel and Leena Mary, “Fusion of Audio Visual Cues for Vehicle Classification”, International Conference on Next Generation Intelligent Systems (ICNGIS), 2016.
• Deekshitha G, Sreelakshmi K R and Ben P Babu and Leena Mary, “Development of Spoken Story Database in Malayalam Language”, ICEES, Chennai 2018, 99-530-533, 2018.
• Piyush P., Rajeev Rajan, Leena Mary, and BinoyI. Koshy ,“Vehicle Detection and Classification using Audio-Visual cues”, IEEE International Conference SPIN 2016, Delhi, Jan, 2016.
• Kesiya Sebastian and Leena Mary, “FASR : Effect of Voice Disguise”, International Conference on Emerging Technological Trends [ICETT], 2016.
• Deekshitha G. and Leena Mary, “Prosodically Guided Phonetic Engine”, IEEE Spices, Calicut, Kerala 2015.
• Athira Jess Cherian, Anil P.Antony and Leena Mary, “Effect of VoIP on Prosodic Features for Speaker Verification”, in International Conference on Control, Communication & Computing India (ICCC) 2015, Trivandrum, Nov 19-21, 2015.
• Lekshmi M.Nair, and Leena Mary , “Pair-wise Language Discrimination using Phonotactic Information”, International Conference on Control, Communication & Computing India (ICCC) 2015, Trivandrum, Nov 19-21, 2015.
• Deekshitha G, Jubin James Thennattil and Leena Mary, “Segmentation of Continuous Speech for Broad Phonetic Engine”, ICECCT, Coimbatore, 2015.
• Renjith S., Leena Mary, Anish Babu K.K., Aju Joseph, and Gibin M. George, "Prosody based voice forgery detection by SVM", International Conference on Control, Communication and Computing, Dec 12-13, Trivandrum (indexed in IEEE explorer), 2014.
• Jobin George, Leena Mary, and Riyas K S, "Vehicle detection and classification from acoustic signature using ANN and KNN", International Conference on Control, Communication and Computing, Dec 12-13, Trivandrum (indexed in IEEE explorer), 2013.
• Sreejith A., Leena Mary, Riyas K.S., Aju Joseph, and Anish Augustine, "Automatic phonetic labeling and broad phonetic engine in Malayalam" International Conference on Control, Communication and Computing, Dec 12-13, Trivandrum (indexed in IEEE explorer), 2013.
• Leena Mary, Anish Babu K.K., Aju Joseph, Gibin M. George “Evaluation Of Mimicked Speech Using Prosodic Features” International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2013), Vancouver, Canada, 26-31 May 2013
• Leena Mary and B. Yegnanarayana, “Prosodic features for language recognition”, Proc. Of Int. Conf. on Signal Processing, Communication and Networks, Chennai 2008.
• Leena Mary and B. Yegnanarayana, "Prosodic features for speaker verification", Proc. of Interspeech, Pittsburgh, 2006
• Leena Mary and B. Yegnanarayana, "Consonant-vowel based features for language recognition", Proc. of Int Conf on language processing, IIT Kanpur, 2005.
• Leena Mary, K. Sreenivasa Rao and B. Yegnanarayana, "Neural network classifiers for language identification using syntactic and prosodic features", Proc. Int. Conf. on Intelligent Sensing and Information Processing, Chennai, 2005.
• Leena Mary, K. S. R. Murty, S. R. M. Prasanna and B. Yegnanarayana, "Features for language and Speaker Recognition", Proc. of Odyssey, Spain, 2004.
• Leena Mary, K. Sreenivasa Rao, S. V. Gangashetty and B. Yegnanarayana, "Neural network models for capturing duration and intonation knowledge for speaker and language identification", Proc. Int. Conf. on Cognitive and Neural Networks, Boston, USA, 2004.
• Leena Mary and B. Yegnanarayana, "Autoassociative neural network models for language identification", Proc. Int. Conf. on Intelligent Sensing and Information Processing, Chennai, 2004.

Papers published in referred national conference proceedings

• Ben P. Babu and Leena Mary, “A Two -Stage System For Content based Audio Retrieval”, Sixth National Conference on Indian Language Computing (NCILC-2016), CUSAT, Kerala, Feb 26-27, 2016.
• Gayathri M. R., Anil P. Antony, and Leena Mary, "Automatic Syllabification for Phonetic Engine in Malayalam", National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT 2014), Trivandrum, Aug. 2014, pp.1448-1453.
• Anil P. Antony, Sophia Susan John, and Leena Mary, "Automatic Speaker Verification Using Prosodic Features", National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT 2014), Trivandrum, Aug. 2014, pp.1454-1457.
• Aju Joseph, Gibin M. George, Anish Babu K. K., Leena Mary, “Computation of Speaker Similarity using Phrase Level Prosodic Features”, National Technological Congress (NATCON 2013), RIT Kottayam, Kerala, Mar 1-2, 2013.
• Anish Augustine, Riyas K.S., Leena Mary, ”Phonetic Transcription and labeling of Prosody for Automatic Speech Recognition”, Proceedings of National Technological Congress - NATCON, Feb 2013, pp. 148-151.
• Rajeena Latheef, Arun K. S., Achuthsankar S. Nair and Leena Mary, "A web based tool for amino acid sequence compression using Huffman coding", Proc. of National Conf. on Recent Innovations in Technology, Kottayam, March 2010.

Invited Talk/Sessions (during 2023-25)

• Resource Person in AICTE Training And Learning (ATAL) Academy Faculty Development Program on "Exploring the Frontiers of Artificial Intelligence: Applications and Innovations" on Mar 18, 2025 at Toms College of Engineering, Mattakkara, Kottayam.
• Invited talk in a seminar on the topic 'Artificial Intelligence' as part of the seminar jointly organized by Kerala Sarvavijanakosham Institute (Government of Kerala) and the State Library Council, on Nov 25, 2024 at UC College, Aluva.
• Invited talk in a seminar on the topic 'Artificial Intelligence' as part of the seminar jointly organized by Kerala Sarvavijanakosham Institute (Government of Kerala) and the State Library Council, on Jan 14, 2025 at CMS College, Kottayam.
• Invited lecture titled “Empower U” organised by IEEE student chapter and Women in Engineering Society at Government Engineering College, Idukki, on 16th Oct, 2024.
• Invited talk as Chief Guest at the International Women's Day celebration at TOMS College, Mattakkara, Kottayam on Mar 7, 2025.
• Invited talk in a seminar on Academic Writing organized by Kerala Sarvavijanakosham Institute (Government of Kerala) at Women's College, Thiruvananthapuram on July 25, 2023.
• Invited talk on Universal Human Values during the first year B. Tech orientation programme at RIT, Kottayam, on 14th Sep, 2023.

Membership in Professional Societies

• Senior Member, IEEE
• Member, IEEE Signal Processing Society
• Life Member, Indian society for Technical Education

Research Interests :

• Speech Processing
• Image Processing
• Machine Learning
• Speaker Forensics