No. I have written Speex while pursuing my Ph.D. At the University of Sherbrooke (2002-2005) in mobile robotics.
Although I did my master with the Sherbrooke speech coding group (in speech enhancement, not coding), I was no longer associated with them when developing Speex. Furthermore, Speex does not make use of any code or proprietary technology developed in the Sherbrooke speech coding group. More.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.