Dolby Laboratories has spent more than 50 years transforming audio-visual experiences. As the company plans for their future ahead, Dolby Australia has worked with APR Intern to establish a research internship program.
Dolby Australia kicked off the program in 2023 with five PhD interns, with the goal to expand and spearhead their research in AI, art and technology. The five APR Interns at Dolby Australia in 2023 were Nuha Aldausari and Antoni Dimitriadis from the University of New South Wales, Heng Wang and Yunyi Liu from the University of Sydney, and Wageesha Manamperi from Australian National University.
The APR Intern program is dedicated to strengthening industry-university collaboration, and empowering students to thrive in a practical research environment. The collaboration with APR and Dolby Australia engages and enthrals PhD researchers with exciting projects, interesting technologies, and allows them to experience what work is like in a corporate environment.
For example, Yunyi Liu, developed a method of using voice to control sound effects which are generated by an AI engine. This became part of his PhD thesis on neural audio synthesis methods. The work that Yunyi conducted was part of an exploratory initiative by the Advanced Technology Group and involved collaboration with various research teams across Dolby’s research offices.
Dolby consists of a community of researchers, engineers, and entertainment enthusiasts. The opportunity for PhD Interns to collaborate and create technologies that breathe life into a range of areas enables them to learn from the brightest minds and put their ideas into action.
“My PhD research internship allows me to work on the existing technologies for sound source localisation with a smaller number of microphones and discover the possibility of integrating the source metadata into these algorithms. Along this process, I have learned and gained new technical knowledge, best practices, and research skills as a PhD student,” said Wageesha Manamperi, APR Dolby Intern.
L-R: Professor Thushara Abhayapala (Academic Supervisor and Mentor at Dolby) with Intern Wageesha Manamperi.
“I’ve been granted access to Dolby’s server infrastructure, allowing me to conduct deep learning experiments. These experiences have fostered my growth as a researcher and provided me with tools to drive towards impactful contributions.”
Nuha Aldausari, APR Dolby Intern.
All PhD Interns echoed how this practical experience has propelled their knowledge to new heights and provided them with a competitive edge for their future employment.
“The last few months have been a fantastic opportunity to experience research in industry. This broad exposure to a highly collaborative research environment has left me feeling much more prepared to work in a research role in industry in the future.”
Antoni Dimitriadis, APR Dolby Intern.
“As a research intern at Dolby, this internship has provided me with lots of new experiences and I have grown like a sponge. By developing a novel research project from scratch under the guidance of industry mentors and many experienced experts, my research skills as well as communication skills have been greatly boosted. Overall, this internship has equipped me with a strong foundation for my future employment.”
Heng Wang, APR Dolby Intern.
“The bold Dolby experiment of five APR Interns at the same time allowed the students to bounce ideas off each other and they gained valuable work ready skills from the Dolby Supervisors. These brilliant PhD students pushed the boundaries in research and the benefits to them such as Conference Papers is great for their recognition in their field,” Mark Ovens, APR Intern Business Manager, NSW/ ACT said.
L-R: Antoni Dimitriadis, Nuha Aldausari, Heng Wang and Yuny Liu.
