Rate My Professor Robert Maher

Robert C. Maher, Ph.D., P.E., is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Montana State University, joining the faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in August 2002 and serving as Department Head from August 2007 until 2017. He holds an affiliate appointment as Professor of Music Technology in the School of Music and currently chairs the MSU Faculty Senate for the 2025-2026 term. Maher earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois-Urbana. His prior academic roles include tenured faculty in Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1989 to 1996. In industry, he was Vice President of Engineering at EuPhonics, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado, starting in 1997, followed by Engineering Manager for Audio Product Development at 3Com-U.S. Robotics after its acquisition of EuPhonics in 1998 until July 2001, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado-Boulder from 2001 to 2002. He maintains an audio software engineering consulting practice established in 2000.

Maher's research centers on digital signal processing with emphasis on applications in digital audio, audio forensic analysis, digital music synthesis, and acoustics. Notable projects encompass gunshot acoustics databases for forensic applications, ecological acoustic remote sensing (EcoEARS) for wildlife monitoring, baseline soundscape analysis for national historic sites, automatic sound source classification in surveillance recordings, and forensic audio enhancement techniques including nonlinear time-frequency filtering. He has published 18 refereed journal articles and 62 refereed conference papers, including 'Audio Forensic Interpretation of the Trump Rally Assassination Attempt (July 13, 2024)' in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society (2025), 'Audio forensic examination: authenticity, enhancement, and interpretation' in IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2009), 'Lending an ear in the courtroom: forensic acoustics' in Acoustics Today (2015), and 'Control of synthesized vibrato during portamento musical pitch transitions' in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society (2008). A Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society since 2008, he serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of its Journal, has co-chaired papers committees for numerous AES conventions, and is a Senior Member of IEEE and Associate Member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Maher has provided audio forensic expertise for the History Channel series 'The Proof is Out There' across the 2023-2025 seasons.