Thomas Hain is a prominent figure in the field of speech and audio technology, currently serving as the Director of the Liveperson Research Centre for Speech and Language at the University of Sheffield and as a Professor in the same department since January 2004. Hain leads the research group Machine Intelligence for Natural Interfaces and is an active member of both the Speech and Hearing Group and the Machine Learning Group. In addition to these roles, Hain is the Director of the UKRI Speech and Language Technologies CDT and holds a position as a Visiting Professor at Nagoya Institute of Technology. Previously, Hain has been the Chief Science Officer at Fetch.ai and has held advisor roles at Meta. Hain's academic background includes a PhD from the University of Cambridge and a degree in Electrical Engineering from Technische Universität Wien.