There are plenty of folks who research this problem at the manufacturers as well as in academia. Stanford, McGill, NYU, UMiami, Aalto University, are a few plac

There are plenty of folks who research this problem at the manufacturers as well as in academia. Stanford, McGill, NYU, UMiami, Aalto University, are a few places where you can find great researchers. The leading journals are the jAES and DAFX journal, and in industry I know of Fender, Native Instruments, Waves, IZotope, among others that were hiring PhDs for this kind of role in the last year. Decent money, not SV money however, but it's more honest work than going to study audio projects for DARPA contractors.