AI and speech technology leader brings more than two decades of experience to her new role.
SRI, celebrating its 80th year, today announced the appointment of Dimitra Vergyri as President of its Information and Computing Sciences (ICS) Division, effective immediately. She has served as interim leader of the division since October 2025, guiding the division while continuing to deliver leading-edge innovations for SRI’s customers.
“Dimitra has demonstrated exceptional leadership at SRI for 25 years at the helm of the Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Laboratory, and I have every confidence in her ability to lead her team to new heights,” said SRI CEO David Parekh. “Her forward-looking approach to the challenges and opportunities in AI and computing is exactly what this team needs at this time in history.”
“Dimitra’s forward-looking approach to the challenges and opportunities in AI and computing is exactly what this team needs at this time in history.” — David Parekh
The division employs 200+ research and technical staff, including 55% PhDs. With $100M+ average annual funding, the division is responsible for creating dozens of venture spinoffs. ICS hosts four world-class research labs: SRI’s AI Center (which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year), the STAR Lab, the Center for Vision Technologies, and the Computer Science Lab. Famous innovations invented inside these labs include Shakey the Robot, Siri, government-grade deepfake detection technologies, explainable AI, neurosymbolic AI, and many others.
“The promise of AI extends well beyond large language models — it requires systems that are trustworthy, transparent, and grounded in rigorous science,” said Vergyri. “That is where SRI brings decades of experience, combining foundational research with strong partnerships across academia, industry, and government to deliver real-world capabilities in autonomous systems, cybersecurity, and human language and vision technologies, and to extend AI in new application areas.”
Vergyri joined SRI in 2000 and has been leading the STAR Lab since 2015. Her expertise spans AI and machine learning, speech and language processing, voice-based analysis for emotional and cognitive assessment, and multilingual technologies for low-resource languages. She previously served as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing and has published more than 50 papers in refereed conferences and journals. Vergyri holds a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University.
Learn more about how SRI’s Information and Computing Sciences division is shaping the future of computing to benefit society.
