Dr. Karen L. Payton is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and holds a Visiting Scientist position with the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT.

She received her B.S. degree as a double major in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Payton is actively involved in research in the area of digital signal processing, as applied to predicting the intelligibility of speech degraded by room acoustics and/or reduced capabilities of a listener. She has also investigated processing capabilities of the auditory system through comparisons of computer simulations of peripheral auditory processing with physiological data.

She is a member of the Acoustical Society of America, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers, and the American Society for Engineering Education.