August 2025

Dear ISCA members,

By the time this newsletter – in our new format, more about that below – reaches you, it’s less than two weeks until Interspeech 2025! At Interspeech 2025, the current ISCA board will step down, including me. This means that this is my last message to you as ISCA President. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I have massively enjoyed my time on the ISCA board and that I found the past 8 years serving our wonderful community in the different roles I had (technical committee, conference committee, diversity committee), and the last four years as vice-president and now president extremely rewarding. A big thank you to all members of all (previous) ISCA boards I had the privilege to work with and to the staff of ISCA: Emmanuelle (Manu) Foxonet, the living memory of ISCA without whom ISCA would be lost, and Antoine Serrurier, the spider in the web for everything related to the technical side of ISCA and Interspeech! I also would like to thank our membership for your support over the years, the great suggestions you presented to me, the wonderful discussions we had, and your trust in me when you told me of your worries. ISCA has always been my academic home and I am extremely proud that I have been able to serve you all for the past eight years and will continue to do my best to keep ISCA the vibrant and warm community it is.

Invitation to the ISCA General Assembly – Monday 18 August, Rotterdam

Are you interested in learning more about what ISCA does? Do you have ideas and suggestions to make things even better? Are you interested hearing about all the changes that have happened or will happen to ISCA? We will explain them all in the ISCA General Assembly during Interspeech!

I hereby invite you to attend the ISCA General Assembly, which will take place on

Day: Monday 18 August 2025
Time: 17.00-18.30 Amsterdam time (right before the Interspeech Welcome Reception)
Location: RTM stage at Ahoy, Rotterdam
Online: https://meet.google.com/kot-zgsa-kqu

During this meeting we will present our financial and president’s report. Both reports need to be approved by the ISCA membership, so we hope that many of you will be there. Importantly, the ISCA General Assembly is the moment to ask your questions, make suggestions, or voice your concerns to the ISCA board. We wish to learn from you in order to further improve our association!

Rectification: New ISCA Newsletter

In the ISCApad of July I wrote a bit about the history of the ISCA newsletter. Unfortunately, there were some errors in it, which were pointed out to me by Joseph Mariani and Maxine Eskenazi, for which I’m extremely thankful! After a highly interesting email exchange about the history of the ISCA newsletter and logo, I’m happy to enlighten you as well – a longer version I will prepare to put onto our website after Interspeech.

In 1988, shortly after the establishment of the European Speech Communication Association (ESCA), Maxine Eskenazi started a newsletter for ESCA. This newsletter was called NESCA (as in Nescafe) and the logo was a cup of coffee, inviting the reader to relax and read its content. The newsletter was printed on paper and distributed by post (snail mail). In 1992, Maxine stepped down as Editor-in-Chief, and Antonio Rubio took over, followed by Joaquim Llisterri. Until this point the frequency of the newsletter was twice per year. In April 1998, the newsletter became a monthly newsletter and the name was changed to ESCAPad. Isabel Trancoso then became the Editor-in-Chief The name ESCAPad was proposed by Christian Benoît over dinner in a restaurant called l’Escapade and is a joke in French with the French word "Escapade". The joke doesn't work anymore with ISCAPad.

Now after 325 ESCApads/ISCApads we have moved to a new format and new Editor-in-Chief. We would like to sincerely thank prof. em. Christian Wellekens again, who edited the last 282(!) issues! From August 2025 onwards, the ISCApad will continue as ISCA News, with Emily Mower Provost as the Editor-in-Chief. Good luck, Emily! To everyone, please contact Emily with any information you might want to put into the ISCA News. She can be contacted through iscapad@isca-speech.org.

Interspeech-related news

Registration is open

Registration for Interspeech 2025 is open: https://www.interspeech2025.org/registration

If you are an ISCA member, please have your ISCA e-mail address and ISCA membership ID ready because you will need both to verify your ISCA membership. The ISCA membership ID can be found on your personal page at http://www.isca-speech.org -> login. Please note that due to the change of ISCA database, your ID has now 8 digits and the old ISCA membership number is no longer valid.

If you have an accepted paper, please have the paper IDs ready.

Tutorials

Interspeech 2025 offers 9 highly interesting tutorials including an invited tutorial on how to create speech sounds with Praat from the creator of Praat, prof. dr. Paul Boersma. If you have not done so yet, but are interested in following 1 or more tutorials, sign up with your Interspeech registration or change your registration and enjoy the fun at the tutorial(s).

Speech Science Festival

The organization of the Speech Science Festival is well on its way with 30 demonstrations and a hackathon. We invite you all to come visit the Speech Science Festival in Ahoy, Rotterdam on Sunday August 17. Admission is free!

It is suitable for a broad audience so bring your family if they are travelling with you.

See you all in Rotterdam, the Netherlands!

Odette Scharenborg
ISCA President