She engaged in research on spoken language processing at the NTT Communication Science Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Kyoto, Japan, from 2002 to 2004. She researched at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh from 2004 to 2006. She joined NICT in 2007 and is currently the director of the spoken language communication laboratory. She received the Paper Award from the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) in 2003, the 24th TELECOM System Technology Award by the Telecommunications Advancement Foundation in 2009, International Cooperation Award from the ITU Association of Japan (ITU-AJ) in 2012, DOCOMO Mobile Science Award for Social Science Sector from Mobile Communication Fund in 2012 and the 58th Maejima Hisoka Award, Tsushinbunka Association, 2013. She is a member of the IEEE, the ISCA, the IEICE and the ASJ.