About Ashley

Ashley Gao is a computer scientist, AI researcher, and engineer specializing in audio-language models, affective computing, and real-world machine learning systems. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at an R1 university, where she leads research at the intersection of human-centered AI and scalable system deployment. She has advised PhD, Master's, undergrads, and high school students. Dr. Gao’s work focuses on enabling machines to understand human emotion, behavior, and interaction through speech and language. She has developed end-to-end AI systems deployed in real-world environments, including intelligent monitoring and recommendation platforms designed to support healthcare applications such as dementia caregiving. Her approach combines cutting-edge modeling (e.g., deep learning, domain adaptation, and multimodal AI) with practical considerations like robustness, scalability, and usability. She has published extensively in top-tier venues such as ACL, EMNLP, and ICASSP, with contributions spanning emotion-aware speech modeling, audio large language models, and domain generalization. Her research has received multiple recognitions, including Best Paper awards, and she actively contributes to the field as a reviewer for leading conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR, as well as a panelist for organizations including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). Beyond research, Dr. Gao works closely with interdisciplinary teams to translate advanced AI techniques into practical, high-impact solutions. She brings a strong ability to bridge technical depth with real-world needs, helping organizations design, deploy, and scale AI systems that deliver measurable outcomes.