Eric Bezzam bio photo

Eric Bezzam

From the Bay Area (California) but currently based in Lausanne. Passionate about signal processing, audio/music, and teaching.

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Teaching

Below are my various teaching experiences. Each experience has had an impact on my public-speaking, communication, and leadership skills. Teaching at the university level has also played a strong part in reinforcing key concepts in signal processing!

University

  • Building an on-device voice assistant (ESSEC Business School and Hochschule Darmstadt, 2019)
    During the Spring and Fall semesters of 2019, I gave workshops at ESSEC on how to use the Snips platform to build on-device voice assistants. I gave a similar one-day course at Hochschule Darmstadt.

  • Audio and acoustic signal processing (EPFL, Fall 2018)
    For this graduate course, I co-supervised several mini-projects, which can be found here.

  • Semester project supervision (EPFL, 2016-2018)
    I’ve co-supervised the following projects with Dr. Robin Scheibler:
    • (Fall 2016) Browser-based interface for microphone array processing in Python with the BeagleBone Black (BBB), GitHub repo.
    • (Fall 2017) Using the PRU microcontrolles on the BBB for front-end audio processing (downsampling and low-pass filtering with the CIC filter) for an array of PDM microphones, GitHub repo.
    • (Spring 2018) Machine learning utilities, i.e. data augmentation and word classification with TensorFlow, for pyroomacoustics, GitHub repo.
    • (Fall 2018) Ray-tracing techniques for room impulse response generation, GitHub repo.

  • Signal processing for communications (EPFL, Spring 2018)
    With Adrien Hoffet and the instructor Paolo Prandoni, practical sessions with the STM32 Nucleo-F072 were created to complement the theory taught in the course. In particular, we go through the voice transformations presented in this IPython notebook and port them for real-time implementation on the board with C. All the material for the practical exercises can be found here.

  • Audio signal processing and virtual acoustics (EPFL, Fall 2017)
    I offered practical sessions on AudioWeaver - a tool which significantly simplifies the process of designing and prototyping audio signal processing algorithms on embedded devices. For the tutorials, we used an STM32F7 discovery kit, and I gave lessons on designing a passthrough, a single-channel noise removal component, and a beamformer. Below are links to the slides/content:
  • Jacobs University (2013-2015)
    I was a TA for the following courses at Jacobs University, which involved giving tutorials, grading assignments and exams, and sometimes creating assignments.
    • DSP and Communications Laboratory (2nd year course).
    • Signals and Systems (2nd year course).
    • General Electrical Engineering (1st year course).

Miscellaneous

  • LauzHack Days (Lausanne, 2018)
    As part of LauzHack’s to mission enable hackers at EPFL, we began doing frequent workshops. I gave the following workshops:
  • GirlsCoding volunteer (Switzerland, 2017-2018)
    On a few occasions, I have volunteered in giving coding workshops to girls of ages 9-16 in French and English:

  • Assistant instructor at the Global Leadership Forum (New Mexico, 2012 & 2013)
    I was one of the mentors at the Global Leadership Forum - a global leadership camp for 30 youth from around 15 countries. We gave workshops in leadership, project development, community building, and intercultural experiences. This was combined with volunteer work at non-profits in Santa Fe, New Mexico and with a Wolf Sanctuary in Colorado.

  • Physics teacher with Breakthrough Collaborative Silicon Valley (California, 2011)
    Certainly one of my most favorite and memorable teaching experiences was with Breakthrough Collorative Silicon Valley. For eight weeks, I taught physics to 8th graders (~13 yo) students who came from low-performing schools and/or low-income backgrounds. As part of the summer program, the teachers were involved with several activities to help motivate the students to continue towards the path of college. I took a group of students to Santa Clara University and also shared my experiences of attending the United World College program.

  • Soccer (California, New Mexico, Germany)
    During my youth, I was quite involved with soccer:
    • Captain for club teams in California: MVLA and De Anza Force.
    • Volunteer coach at the Kick, lead, and Dream summer camp in 2010.
    • Raised money and started team at UWC-USA in New Mexico. Co-captained team from 2011-2012.
    • At Jacobs University, captained team from 2014-2015, leading to highest ever league finish.

  • Piano (New Mexico, 2011-2012)
    I gave beginner piano lessons to the child of one of my teachers. I’ve taught countless people Heart and Soul for quick jam sessions ;)