The ISCA Mid-Career Excellence Award recognizes and honors an individual who has shown a notable contribution in a specific area of speech communication research. Congratulations to our inaugural winners of the ISCA Mid-Career Award 2026: 

• Xie Chen, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
  For advancing speech foundation models and leading impactful open-source contributions to the speech research community.
  
  
• Rohan Kumar Das,  Fortemedia Singapore (industry)
  For contributions to speaker recognition, deepfake detection, and benchmark challenge leadership. 
  
  
• Sam Kirkham, Lancaster University
  For advancing understanding of speech dynamics through integration of articulatory imaging, computational modelling, and dynamical systems theory.