Wencke Ophaug is an Associate Professor Emerita at the University of Oslo's Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies. Her research focuses on phonetics, particularly singing phonetics and German language studies. She has contributed extensively to understanding vowel articulation, consonant realization, and IPA transcription challenges in classical singing across German, Scandinavian, and Finnish languages. Ophaug is affiliated with the research group 'Phonetics Fanatics' and has been involved in projects like the Telemann Project. Her work bridges linguistics and musicology, addressing practical vocal performance issues and historical phonological developments. Key research interests include the interplay between speech and singing phonetics, vowel modification in classical singing, and cross-linguistic challenges in vocal performance. She has authored/co-authored articles on topics like laterals in singing, Scandinavian IPA transcription, and German rhotacism in vocal contexts. Her career spans over four decades, with contributions to academic reviews and pedagogical approaches in foreign language pronunciation.
Sanjay Reddy is Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research and an Affiliated Faculty Member of the Politics Department. His work bridges economics, philosophy, and policy with a focus on global development challenges. Education: PhD in Economics, 2000, Harvard University MA in Economics, 1995, Harvard University MPhil in Social Anthropology, 1993, Cambridge University AB in Applied Mathematics (with Physics), 1991, Harvard University Professor Reddy's research spans development economics, inequality and poverty measurement, globalization, welfare economics, and the intersection of economics with ethics and philosophy. His work critically examines economic methodologies and their implications for policy, particularly regarding poverty measurement and international development frameworks. He has made significant contributions to understanding global inequality, the limitations of traditional economic approaches, and the ethical dimensions of economic policy. His recent work has increasingly focused on pandemic economics, vaccine equity, and climate change economics, reflecting his commitment to addressing pressing global challenges through interdisciplinary analysis. Reddy's publications reveal a consistent pattern of challenging conventional economic thinking while developing alternative frameworks that incorporate ethical considerations and broader social contexts. His work spans theoretical economics, empirical analysis of global poverty and inequality, and policy-relevant research on international development. The breadth of his publications—from statistical physics applications to economics to ethical frameworks for development—demonstrates his unique interdisciplinary approach that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. Scientific Recognition: Fellow of the Human Development and Capabilities Association Lead Author of the International Panel on Social Progress Professor Reddy has served on editorial boards of numerous prestigious journals including the American Review of Political Economy, Development, Ethics & International Affairs, and the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. He has received research grants from various sources and held fellowships at Harvard University, Princeton University, and other institutions. His advisory work with the United Nations—including service on the Independent High-level Team of Advisers to the Economic and Social Council—demonstrates the policy relevance of his research. As co-founder and team leader of the Global Consumption and Income Project, he has developed innovative approaches to measuring global poverty and inequality. Professor Reddy is also actively engaged in academic governance issues, having spoken on the challenges facing higher education institutions and participated in faculty union activities at The New School. His work has been widely cited and translated into multiple languages, with frequent contributions to major media outlets including the Financial Times, Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Project Syndicate.
Eva Liina Asu-Garcia is an Associate Professor of Phonetics at the University of Tartu's Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics (0.80 position), and an Associate Professor of Swedish Language at the Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures (0.20 position). She has been affiliated with the University of Tartu since 1995, holding various academic positions including Lecturer, Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow, and now Associate Professor. She also served as Head of Department at the Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures from 2021 to 2024. Dr. Asu-Garcia earned her Doctoral degree in Linguistics from the University of Cambridge in 2004, with her dissertation titled 'The Phonetics and Phonology of Estonian Intonation,' supervised by Prof. Francis Nolan. Prior to this, she completed an M. Phil in English and Applied Linguistics (1996-1997) and a B.A. in English Language and Literature (1989-1995) from Tartu University. Her research primarily focuses on phonetics, with special emphasis on Estonian intonation, prosody, and speech production. She investigates the acoustic and articulatory properties of Estonian quantity distinctions, intonation patterns in various discourse contexts, and cross-linguistic aspects of phonetics, particularly in relation to Swedish and Spanish language learners. Her work often combines experimental methods with theoretical linguistics to understand how prosody functions in communication. She has published extensively in international journals and conference proceedings, with recent work examining multimodal aspects of speech, cross-cultural perception of vocalizations, and the documentation of endangered language varieties. Dr. Asu-Garcia has received numerous awards and scholarships throughout her career, including the Kordelin Foundation Scholarship (2016, 2006), Valter Niilus award (2010), and several Cambridge Overseas Trust scholarships. She is an active member of multiple professional organizations including the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA), International Phonetics Association (IPA), and the British Association of Academic Phoneticians (BAAP). She currently supervises PhD student Katrin Leppik (researching Estonian vowel categories and quantity degrees in Spanish L1 speakers) and Master's student Vootele Valter (studying Ruhnu Swedish language clusivity). She has successfully supervised several other students to completion of their degrees. Dr. Asu-Garcia also leads research projects funded by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Nordic Council of Ministers, focusing on multimodal analysis of spoken Estonian and documentation of Ruhnu Swedish dialect.
Sethu Karthikeyan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the College of Health Professions, Pace University, where he has been a faculty member since 2013. He holds a PhD in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. His academic roles are deeply integrated with interdisciplinary research at the intersection of evolutionary psychology, speech science, and sociolinguistics. PhD, Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, The Graduate School and University Center, The City University of New York, 2012 MS, Speech and Hearing, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, India, 2003 BS, Speech and Hearing, Dr. MV Shetty College of Speech and Hearing, Mangalore, India, 2001 Dr. Karthikeyan's research focuses on evolutionary behavioral sciences, particularly the human capacity for spoken language, social evaluations based on speech, vocal-verbal flexibility, and cultural diversity. He investigates how voice pitch, articulation, and dialect influence perceptions of attractiveness, status, and empathy, often using an evolutionary psychology framework. His work bridges speech science and sociocultural factors, with collaborations involving the Evolutionary Psychology Lab at SUNY New Paltz and the Behavioral Endocrinology and Evolution Lab at Penn State. His recent publications, including in Scientific Reports and Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences , reveal a strong trend toward understanding human mating behaviors, sound symbolism (e.g., Bouba-Kiki effect), and cross-cultural communication. The articles collectively emphasize experimental and evolutionary approaches to language and social perception, often incorporating cross-modal and cross-cultural data. Dr. Karthikeyan has received several honors, including the College of Health Professions Dean's Scholarship Award (2023), the Martin Gitterman Excellence in Teaching Award (2010), and the Moe and Hannah Bergman Award (2009). He has advised multiple student researchers and secured numerous grants, such as the Dean’s Summer Research Grant (2024), SRC awards, and the Kenan Grant for conference presentations (2014–2024). He is also actively involved in university governance, serving on committees including the Allied Health Search Committee and the Scholarly Research Committee. Dr. Karthikeyan is an Editorial Board member of Scientific Reports (Human Behaviour) and a member of professional organizations such as the International Society for Human Ethology and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. He teaches courses such as Evolutionary Psychology, The Science of Speech Sounds, and Research in Communication Science Disorders, reflecting his broad expertise and integrative approach to behavioral and communication sciences.
Matti Hämäläinen is a Professor at the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering , Aalto University. He is a leading expert in Magnetoencephalography (MEG) , with a focus on sensor design, neural connectivity, and clinical applications. His work contributes to understanding brain disorders like autism and epilepsy. Doctorate in Materiaalifysiikka, Teknillinen Korkeakoulu (1989) Diplomi-insinööri in Teknillinen Fysiikka, Teknillinen Korkeakoulu (1983) Hämäläinen's research spans MEG technology , auditory and visual cortex dynamics , and functional connectivity analysis . He develops open-source tools like MNE-Python and HNN-Core for neural data interpretation. Scientific Awards : None explicitly mentioned. He has led projects such as NIH Scalable Software for MEG/EEG and Device-Independent Real-Time MEG EEG Source Localization , with media coverage in outlets including Massachusetts General Hospital and Targeted News Service.
Nicolas Ballier is a Professor at Université Paris Cité (formerly Université Paris Diderot), where he teaches and conducts research in linguistics and digital humanities. Previously, he taught at the Université de Rouen and Paris 13. His work focuses on the intersection of linguistics, computational methods, and language learning technologies, with particular expertise in neural machine translation and speech processing. His primary research interests include: Corpus prosody Neural machine translation Automatic analysis of learner corpora Digital humanities Epistemology of linguistics (third revolution of grammatisation) Interpretability of neural machine translation systems Representation of speech in Whisper audio models Dr. Ballier's recent work explores how computers transform linguistic data (the 'third revolution of grammatisation'), with a focus on neural machine translation interpretability and speech analysis using large language models like Whisper. His research bridges theoretical linguistics with practical applications in language learning and translation technologies, particularly focusing on how these technologies can be made transparent and useful for translators and language learners. His 15 most recent publications (2022-2024) demonstrate a strong focus on neural machine translation interpretability, Whisper applications for language assessment, and learner corpus analysis. The publications span multiple prestigious venues including EAMT, ACL, LREC-COLING, and specialized journals in speech technology and computational linguistics, showing consistent productivity and impact in his fields. Dr. Ballier has been PI or team member on numerous European-funded projects including DOKTORAND (2012-2016), KVARK project (2014-2026), PHC Ulysses (2019), multitraiNMT (2021), and LT-LIder project (2024-Nov 2026). He has developed platforms like PAPTAN for neural machine translation experiments and MAKE-NMT VIZ for investigating machine translation interpretability. He has supervised PhD students through collaborative projects and has been involved in research initiatives like DLLA (Deep Learning for Language Assessment) exploring CEFR levels with keylog data, Neuroviz (2021-2022), and SPECTRANS (2020-2022) focusing on specialized neural translation and probing information flow in neural networks.
Mahanth Gowda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, leading a prolific research program at the intersection of mobile systems, wireless sensing, and human-computer interaction. His work has been continuously funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation since 2019, serving as Principal Investigator on four awards and Co-PI on two others, collectively spanning edge computing for XR, sign-language recognition, next-generation wireless networking, and healthcare-oriented wearables. Research Interests Millimetre-wave and ultra-wideband sensing for 3-D finger motion tracking and speech eavesdropping Edge-IoT platforms for real-time sign-language recognition and translation Neural-augmented game streaming and super-resolution on commodity mobile devices Open-source wearable systems for sports analytics and rehabilitative healthcare Security and privacy implications of motion sensors in smartphones and IoT devices Over the past five years his publication trajectory has concentrated on leveraging emerging radio modalities—especially millimetre-wave radar, Wi-Fi, and UWB—to extract fine-grained human-centric information such as finger gestures, facial micro-motions, and spoken content. A complementary thread develops edge-native machine-learning frameworks that push intelligence to resource-constrained devices, enabling immersive AR/VR experiences and assistive technologies for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities. Grants & Projects CAREER: Sign-to-Speech – NSF, $500k, 2021-2026; Edge-IoT platform for real-time ASL recognition. SHF: Medium: Next-Gen XR Edge Platform – NSF, $1.2M, 2022-2025; Co-PI with Das, Sivasubramaniam, Kandemir. CNS Core: IoTScope – NSF, $450k, 2020-2025; Sensing physical materials via low-cost IoT radios. CNS Core: Medium: ML-driven Next-G Wireless – NSF, $800k, 2020-2024; Co-PI with Yang and Mahdavi. I-Corps: Smart Ring for Healthcare Analytics – NSF, $50k, 2023-2025; Commercialization of finger-motion wearables. Labs & Teams Gowda directs a research group that operates at the confluence of wireless networking, embedded systems, and applied machine learning. The lab maintains active collaborations with faculty in computer architecture, augmented reality, and accessibility studies, and routinely mentors graduate researchers whose work appears in top-tier venues such as ACM MobiCom, IEEE INFOCOM, ISCA, and ACM IoTDI.
Patrizia Paggio serves as an Associate Professor and Senior Researcher within the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Humanities, concurrently holding a full professorship at the University of Malta's Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology since September 2011. Her scholarly work centers on the intricate relationship between verbal and nonverbal communication modalities, with international recognition for advancing methodologies in multimodal analysis. Academic Background: PhD in Computational Linguistics from the University of Copenhagen (1997), dissertation: "The Treatment of Information Structure in Machine Translation" Professor Paggio's research program investigates how gestures, head movements, and other nonverbal cues interact with spoken language to construct meaning in natural communication. She has pioneered methodologies for constructing and analyzing multimodal corpora, while maintaining technical expertise in machine translation systems, grammar engineering, and content-based querying frameworks. Her theoretical work spans formal syntactic structures, discourse phenomena, information packaging, and ontological representations for linguistic data, consistently bridging computational methods with linguistic theory. Analysis of her recent publications (2020-2025) reveals a sustained focus on computational approaches to nonverbal communication, particularly the automatic detection and annotation of head movements and gestures in both physical and digital environments. Key contributions include the GEHM Zoom corpus for online interaction analysis, eye-tracking studies of emoji processing, and diachronic modeling of historical language change. Her work strategically integrates eye-tracking, corpus linguistics, and machine learning techniques, establishing her at the convergence of linguistic theory, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence applications. Professional Leadership: Coordinator of the international GEHM (Gestures and Head Movements in Language) research network Organizer of MULTIMODAL CORPORA 2018, 4th European/Nordic Symposium on Multimodal Communication, and LREC2022 Workshop on People in Vision, Language and the Mind
Alain Ausoni is a researcher (MER 1) at the School of French as a Foreign Language within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), a position he has held since August 2018. His academic journey includes a Master's in Comparative Literature from the University of Kent and a doctorate from the University of Oxford as a Berrow Scholar. He previously studied at UNIL and holds a teaching diploma from HEP-VD. His research focuses on multilingualism in literature and the teaching of spoken French in FLE contexts. He is particularly known for his work on translingual writing—autobiographical practices by non-native French authors—and for developing pedagogical tools for oral comprehension. His recent book Mémoires d'outre-langue (2018) explores this theme in depth. He co-created the digital platform FLORALE (florale.unil.ch) with Christian Surcouf, a corpus-based resource for teaching spoken French, supported by the Educational Innovation Fund. The trends in his scholarly publications reveal a sustained engagement with translingual autobiography, oral language variation in French, and innovative FLE pedagogy. His works analyze how learners comprehend spontaneous spoken French and how literary authors navigate identity across languages. He has also contributed to the historical understanding of oral corpus use in language teaching. Alain Ausoni was supported by an SNSF mobility grant during his postdoctoral fellowship at the École normale supérieure de Paris, completed in January 2019. He has not received any explicitly mentioned scientific awards in the provided texts. He has not listed any students or advising roles. He is involved in digital educational innovation through the FLORALE project, which represents a significant contribution to applied linguistics and language teaching methodology.
Dr. Lucy Bryant is a Senior Lecturer in Speech Pathology at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Faculty of Health, with over a decade of clinical experience working with children and adults across community, private practice, and university clinics. She is a certified practising speech pathologist whose work centers on ensuring access to communication as a fundamental human right, with a strong emphasis on technology applications in speech pathology practice. PhD in Speech Pathology, University of Newcastle Australia (2014-2018) Bachelor of Speech Pathology (First Class Honours, University Medal), University of Newcastle Australia (2009-2012) Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, University of Technology Sydney Dr. Bryant's research focuses on language development and rehabilitation across the lifespan, with particular emphasis on how people process, understand, and express meaning. She has significant expertise in discourse analysis for clinical practice, especially for people with aphasia following stroke. Her innovative work explores the integration of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies in speech pathology, examining how these tools can enhance communication access and inclusion for individuals with communication disabilities. She also investigates neurodevelopmental communication disorders and the application of technology in improving language learning and rehabilitation outcomes across the lifespan. Dr. Bryant's publication record demonstrates a strong trajectory toward immersive technologies in speech pathology practice, with recent work heavily focused on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality applications. Her research spans both adult and pediatric populations, addressing communication disorders across the lifespan, with a consistent emphasis on translating research findings into practical clinical applications. Her collaborative approach is evident in numerous interdisciplinary projects and international partnerships, particularly the FOQUS Aphasia initiative she helped launch. Dr. Bryant actively supervises Masters and PhD students and has secured competitive research funding through projects like 'Augmented Reality to Support Social Language Skill Development' (EPIC MEGAGRANTS) and 'Co-designing an Augmented Reality Application for Children with Communication Disability' (UTS ECR Research Capabilities Development Initiative). As Theme Lead for Professional Practice and Education in the UTS INSIGHT Digital Health Collaborative, Dr. Bryant works at the intersection of technology and clinical practice. She co-founded the international collaboration FOQUS Aphasia and is actively involved in the UTS speech pathology clinic that provides free public treatment while offering students clinical experience. Her work with the Digital, Virtual and AI in Health Collaborative (DVAIHC) positions her at the forefront of technology integration in speech pathology education and practice.
Gokhan Tur is a Research Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Siebel School of Computing and Data Science. He is a leading expert in conversational AI systems, having contributed to major virtual assistants like Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa. His research focuses on Large Language Models, Spoken Dialogue Systems, and Language Understanding. He holds over 250 publications and co-authored the influential book Spoken Language Understanding (Wiley, 2011). Education: PhD in Computer Science from Bilkent University, Turkey (2000). Visiting scholarships at CMU LTI, Johns Hopkins University, and SRI International (1997-1999). Research Contributions: Pioneered conversational systems at AT&T Research (2001-2006), worked on DARPA projects (GALE, CALO), and held key roles at Microsoft, Apple, Google, Uber, and Amazon. Current interests include LLMs and conversational AI evaluation frameworks like YourBench. Awards: IEEE Fellow (2020), IEEE SPS Best Paper Award (2020), and multiple best paper recognitions from ISCA and EURASIP. Labs & Teams: Leads the Conversational AI Lab at UIUC, collaborating with industry partners like Hugging Face. Advises PhD candidates specializing in NLP and ML.
Vasanth Sarathy is a Research Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Tufts University, specializing in the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing. His work combines neuro-symbolic machine learning techniques with social and cognitive sciences to develop socially-competent and safe AI systems. Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science and Cognitive Science, Tufts University (2020) Juris Doctor (J.D.), Boston University School of Law (2010) M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT (2005) B.S. in Electrical Engineering, University of Arkansas (2003) His research spans three interconnected themes: Social NLP, Reasoning with Social Norms, and Sense-making and Problem-Solving. Through Social NLP, he develops computational methods to uncover patterns in human social behavior using qualitative texts. His work on Reasoning with Social Norms focuses on building AI architectures that can understand and apply social norms in reasoning and language interpretation. His Sense-making research explores how humans and AI systems simplify complex worlds for efficient problem-solving. His recent publications demonstrate a growing trend toward integrating Large Language Models with symbolic reasoning for more trustworthy AI. His work spans applications including automated writing assistance, intelligent tutoring, fact-checking, social media content moderation, and embodied social robots. His research shows particular strength in developing methods that combine neural and symbolic approaches to address complex social reasoning tasks that neither approach could solve alone. Previously, Dr. Sarathy worked as a Senior Researcher of AI at Smart Information Flow Technologies, collaborating with the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Community. Before his AI career, he practiced intellectual property law at Ropes and Gray for nearly a decade. His unique interdisciplinary background bridges technology, law, and cognitive science. He advises students in AI, NLP, and cognitive systems, with research supported by grants from DARPA and other government agencies. His work has applications in human-robot interaction, social media analysis, and educational technologies. Outside academia, he creates single-panel cartoons, practices martial arts, plays chess, and designs puzzle video games. His interdisciplinary journey from law to AI has been featured in a BU Law article.
Professor Jennifer Culbertson is a faculty member in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh's School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. Her research focuses on understanding how linguistic patterns emerge from cognitive biases and learning processes, particularly through experimental methods involving artificial language learning and computational modeling. She investigates typological universals, word order preferences, and morphological systems, emphasizing their cognitive and communicative foundations. Her current research explores how speakers' cognitive representations of gender and number morphology influence cross-linguistic tendencies in morpheme order, as well as the interplay between communicative efficiency and social biases in language learning. She supervises PhD students in areas including experimental syntax, language evolution, and cognitive linguistics. Culbertson has published extensively in top journals such as Cognition , Language , and Cognitive Science . Publications include studies on word order universals derived from silent gesture experiments, the role of simplicity in linguistic evolution, and experimental evidence for cognitive biases shaping morpheme order. Recent work (2024) highlights a universal bias in word order preferences even among speakers of non-harmonic languages.
David J. Beck is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta. He holds a PhD from the University of Toronto (1999) and an MA from the University of Victoria (1995). His research focuses on fieldwork-driven investigations of endangered languages, particularly in the Totonacan and Salishan language families. Beck is renowned for his decades-long documentation of Upper Necaxa Totonac, a critically endangered language spoken in Mexico, supported by SSHRC funding since 2002. His work emphasizes language contact, grammatical diffusion, and areal typology, with notable contributions to understanding Sprachbund dynamics in Mesoamerica and the Pacific Northwest. Editorial Roles: Co-editor of the International Journal of American Linguistics (2014–present) and North American editor for Brill Studies in Native Languages of the Americas Teaching: Courses include LING 308 (Morphology) and graduate seminars on linguistic typology Key Projects: Upper Necaxa Project, Lushootseed text compilation, and development of SLEXIL documentation software Beck’s research integrates theoretical linguistics with applied language documentation, addressing issues of morphological complexity, lexical classification, and syntactic variation. His work highlights the interplay between language structure and sociocultural context, particularly in endangered language communities.
Silke Melanie Göbel is a Professor II at the Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo (since 2019) and an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of York, UK (since 2015). She holds a DPhil in Experimental Psychology from the University of Oxford (2003), supervised by Professors Vincent Walsh and Matthew Rushworth. Her research focuses on mathematical cognition, including the neural correlates of numerical processing, developmental dyscalculia, and cross-linguistic influences on numerical skills. She leads the Numerical Cognition Lab at the University of York and directs the MSc course in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Her work employs methods like fMRI, EEG, and rTMS to investigate how cultural and linguistic factors shape numerical understanding. She has published widely on topics such as arithmetic development, language effects in number processing, and the cognitive foundations of mathematical difficulties. Her research highlights the interplay between education, language, and numerical competence. She has contributed to understanding how reading direction and number word structure influence counting and arithmetic. Key interests include identifying predictors of arithmetic fluency and examining the role of executive functions in mathematical learning. Her recent work addresses longitudinal studies of numerical development and interventions for mathematical learning disabilities. Dr. Göbel’s articles span cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and education, emphasizing cross-cultural comparisons and translational research. She has co-authored textbooks like An Introduction to Mathematical Cognition and edited volumes exploring cultural and linguistic impacts on numerical cognition. Her projects, such as iSeeNumbers , investigate individual differences in numeracy development linked to motivation and well-being.
