Dennis H. Klatt

Dennis H. Klatt (March 31, 1938 – December 30, 1988) was an American researcher in speech and hearing science. Klatt was the pioneer of computerized speech synthesis and created an interface which allowed for speech for non-expert users for the first time. His research was commercialized as DECtalk. The default male voice in DECTalk, Perfect Paul, is based on Klatt's own voice.

Prior to his work, non-verbal individuals would need specialist support to be able to speak at all. Stephen Hawking used Perfect Paul, and which Hawking chose to keep even after others became available.