Interview with Dr. Roberto Pieraccini, Director of the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) at Berkeley, USA

W. Wahlster ( ) German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Saarbrücken, Germany e-mail: wahlster@dfki.de Dr. Roberto Pieraccini is the new director of ICSI (www. icsi.berkeley.edu) as of January 15, 2012. He succeeds Professor Nelson Morgan, who served as director for 13 years and helped found ICSI’s Computer Speech Group in 1988. Morgan serves now as deputy director and continues to lead the Speech Group. Dr. Pieraccini was interviewed by Wolfgang Wahlster, who was the first visitor of ICSI in 1987 and currently serves on the Board of Trustees as well as the Executive Board of ICSI. The FIT program of Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which is managed by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), provides funding for German post-docs visiting ICSI for 1–2 years (www.daad.de/fit/).