Mary Stevens

Mary Stevens is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Phonetics and Speech Processing (IPS) at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her work focuses on sound change, the phonetics-phonology interface, and experimental phonetics. She holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne (2007), following degrees from the Australian National University (B.A., 2000) and the University of Melbourne (B.A. (Hons), 2001). Stevens has been affiliated with the IPS since 2010, initially as a Humboldt Foundation-funded postdoctoral researcher and later as a full research fellow.

Her research investigates how phonetic variation leads to permanent sound changes, particularly focusing on /s/-to-/sh/ retraction in languages like English and Italian. Current projects include a DFG-funded study (2018–2025) modeling the actuation of sound change through agent-based simulations. Key interests include computational modeling, sociophonetics, and linguistic typology.

Publications span experimental phonetics, sound change dynamics, and computational linguistics. She collaborates internationally, notably with John Harrington and Frank Kleber, on projects exploring agent-based modeling and phonetic variation. Stevens also engages in interdisciplinary work, such as applying phonetic analysis to clinical communication training in medicine.

Grants and Funding: DFG project (2018–2025) on modeling sound change actuation.

Labs/Teams: Active member of the IPS research group, contributing to the Bavarian Archive for Speech Signals (BAS) and the MAMPF database for speech processing.