Dr. Elisa Pellegrino is a senior Post-Doc in Phonetics at the Department of Computational Linguistics , affiliated with Zeppelin University and the Digital Society Initiative of the University of Zurich . Her research focuses on voice individualization, vocal accommodation, and the role of speaker-specific information in speech temporal variability. Role: Senior Post-Doc in Phonetics University: Zeppelin University School: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Department: Department of Computational Linguistics Email: elisa.pellegrino@uzh.ch Research Interests: Prosody and speech rhythm in native and second language acquisition Vocal accommodation in cross-dialectal interactions Speaker individuality and forensic phonetics Age-related speech temporal variability Speech disorders and Parkinson’s disease Applications of speech technology in linguistics and education
Roziana Ramli is an academic affiliated with Northumbria University, holding a PhD in Computer Science. Her research focuses on medical imaging techniques, cybersecurity in healthcare systems, and bio-inspired optimization algorithms. She has contributed to advancements in retinal fundus image registration and IoT security protocols. Her work integrates computer vision with biomedical applications, addressing challenges in healthcare monitoring and assistive technologies. Key research areas include federated learning in healthcare networks, prosodic feature analysis for language recognition, and secure communication for drone networks. Her systematic literature reviews and algorithmic innovations highlight her interdisciplinary approach to solving technical and clinical problems. Though no formal awards are listed, her active publication record from 1999 to 2024 demonstrates sustained academic engagement.
Prof. Dr. Angelika Braun is a full Professor of Phonetics at the University of Trier since October 2009, with a career spanning forensic phonetics, sociophonetics, and cross-cultural speech analysis. She previously held roles at the Bundeskriminalamt (Wiesbaden/Düsseldorf) and Philipps-Universität Marburg, where she habilitated in Phonetics and Speech Processing (2000). Her work bridges academic research with forensic practice. Research Focus: Her Sociophonetics (language and emotions, gender-specific speech) Forensic Phonetics (speaker identification, voice analysis) Contrastive and Hawaiian Phonetics Speech prosody and toxin effects (smoking, alcohol) Intercultural dubbing studies Academic Contributions: Over 15 recent articles explore voice quality, emotional speech, forensic age estimation, and cross-cultural dubbing effects. Key conferences include Interspeech, International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, and ISCA. Her work appears in journals like Forensic Linguistics and The Phonetician . Scientific Honors: Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) Founder Member and former Chairperson of the International Association for Forensic Phonetics (IAFP) Life-Member of the International Phonetic Association (IPA) Leadership roles in ISPhS and GAL Practical Impact: Developed the Almeida-Braun Transcription System for dialect analysis and contributed to forensic audio enhancement protocols (e.g., Rodney King case). Serves as reviewer for Language and Speech , Forensic Linguistics , and JIPA . Collaborates on longitudinal studies of vocal aging and speaker identification.
Larry M. Hyman is Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at University of California, Berkeley, specializing in phonological theory and African language studies. His research analyzes tone systems, Bantu morphophonology, and Niger-Congo historical linguistics. Research focuses on tonal patterns in Bantu languages, morphotactic structures, and historical development of African tone systems. Recent work examines Tiania tonology, Luganda noun phrase prosody, and Runyankore verb morphology. Publications demonstrate methodological rigor in phonological analysis and language documentation, contributing to theoretical understanding of tone, prosody, and morphological complexity in understudied languages. Editorial contributions include honor volumes and theoretical studies advancing autosegmental phonology and morphological analysis.
Judit Gervain is a Full Professor at the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology at the University of Padua, Italy, and a CNRS Senior Research Scientist (Directeur de Recherche) at the Integartive Neuroscience and Cognition Center (CNRS & Université Paris Descartes), Paris, France. Her research focuses on early speech perception, language acquisition in monolingual and bilingual infants, and the neural mechanisms underlying language learning. She pioneered studies on newborn speech perception using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), revealing prenatal influences on perceptual abilities and the emergence of grammatical structures in preverbal infants. Education: PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience (2002, SISSA, Trieste), postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia (2007–2009), and CNRS researcher since 2009. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles in journals like Science Advances , Nature Communications , and Developmental Science . Research Interests: Infant language processing, bilingualism, neuroimaging techniques (fNIRS), and comparing infant learning trajectories to artificial intelligence systems. Her work bridges developmental psychology, neuroscience, and computational linguistics, emphasizing the role of innate biases and environmental input in language acquisition. Her recent studies explore how infants’ learning mechanisms differ from Large Language Models (LLMs), focusing on input requirements, critical periods, and the role of multimodal integration. She also investigates the impact of prenatal auditory experience on neonatal speech perception and the neural foundations of linguistic structure detection. Labs/Teams: Affiliated with the CNRS’s Integartive Neuroscience and Cognition Center and the University of Padua’s developmental psychology group. Serves as associate editor for Developmental Science and Neurophotonics .
Aaron Kaplan is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Utah, a position he has held since 1 July 2024 after earlier serving as Assistant Professor (2010–2018) and then Associate Professor. A theoretical phonologist specializing in prominence-driven processes and optionality, he employs Optimality Theory and Harmonic Grammar frameworks to investigate positional licensing, vowel harmony, and gradient grammaticality. Education BA, Linguistics – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002 MA, Linguistics – University of California, Santa Cruz, 2004 PhD, Linguistics – University of California, Santa Cruz, 2008 Research Focus Kaplan’s work is organized around two central themes: prominence-driven phonological processes —especially positional licensing—and optionality . His studies explore how certain positions (stressed syllables, word edges, etc.) become privileged targets or triggers for harmony, reduction, or epenthesis. Complementarily, he investigates how grammars permit variation, modeling categorical versus gradient ungrammaticality within Optimality Theory, Harmonic Grammar, and their stochastic variants. Publications Across more than thirty refereed papers and proceedings (2005–2025), Kaplan has examined phenomena ranging from Chamorro umlaut and Lango vowel harmony to Eastern Andalusian and Bolognese dialect data. A recurring thread is the integration of theoretical insights with computational modeling, yielding predictions about typological frequency, learnability, and speaker variation. Scientific Awards No specific awards are mentioned in the supplied materials. Advising & Grants No lists of advisees or funded grants are supplied. Labs & Teams Kaplan conducts research within the Linguistics Department at the University of Utah and maintains an active GitHub presence under username afkaplan , where he hosts supplementary materials for his articles and collaborates on computational phonology projects.
Dr Mary Baltazani is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Phonetics at the University of Oxford's Faculty of Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics, affiliated with the Phonetics Lab and Language & Brain Lab. Her research focuses on the interface between phonetics, phonology, and pragmatics, with special attention to intonation, Greek dialects, and sociophonetics. She leads and collaborates on projects examining language contact effects on intonation (e.g., Greek in Cyprus, Cretan Greek under Venetian influence) and the compositional nature of intonational meaning. Education: PhD in Linguistics from UCLA (2002), M.A. in Linguistics (UCLA), and academic positions at institutions including UCL, University College London, and the University of Ioannina. She has organized major conferences like BAAP 2014 and contributed to the creation of educational materials on Greek dialects through projects like VOCALECT. Research Interests : Intonation and pragmatics in Greek Historical and dialectal phonetics Language contact in the Eastern Mediterranean Prosodic typology and socioprosodic variation Current/Recent Projects: Greek in Contact (ESRC-funded): Examines Turkish and Italian influences on Greek intonation. Components of Intonation (British Academy): Investigates whether intonation's meaning is holistic or compositional. Grants include ESRC, British Academy, and NSRF European Regional Development Fund awards. Publications span encyclopedic entries, journal articles, and conference proceedings on topics like Cypriot Arabic prosody, Greek dialectal vowel systems, and historical phonetic change.
Sonia Colina is a Regents Professor and holds a dual affiliation with the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences (College of Science) and the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program at the University of Arizona. She is a leading scholar in Spanish phonology (Optimality Theory, syllable structure) and Translation Studies, particularly focusing on translation pedagogy and healthcare translation. Her research bridges linguistic theory and practical applications, such as improving healthcare access for limited-English-proficient populations through translation mediation and community health initiatives. Dr. Colina has authored influential works like *Fundamentals of Translation* (2015) and *Syllable Structure in Spanish* (2009), and co-edited volumes such as *The Handbook of Spanish Phonology*. She has directed NIH-funded projects, including the Oyendo Bien initiative using community health workers to address hearing loss among border populations and a collaboration on Spanish/English text simplification with the Department of Management Information Systems. Her research interests span translation quality assessment, bilingual phonological acquisition, and the role of surface/semantic features in medical text simplification. As Director of the National Center for Interpretation, she advances interpreter training and standards in healthcare and legal settings. She is a past president of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association (ATISA), contributing to the professionalization of translation studies. In grants and collaborations, Colina emphasizes interdisciplinary partnerships, such as integrating linguistics with audiology and public health. Her work highlights translational research that enhances language accessibility and equity in healthcare systems.
Matthew Gordon is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), within the College of Letters and Science. His research focuses on phonetics, phonology, prosody, and linguistic typology, with a particular emphasis on understudied languages such as Estonian, Chickasaw, Koasati, Kabardian, and others. He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA (1999) and has published extensively on topics including speech rhythm, tone-stress interactions, and prosodic structures in morphologically complex languages. Education: 1999 Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles Research Interests: Acoustic and articulatory phonetics Phonological typology and universals Prosodic systems (stress, intonation, rhythm) Documentation of endangered and understudied languages Experimental methods in phonetics Key Projects: Typological aspects of speech rhythm Prosody in languages with complex morphology Croatian pitch accent analysis Estonian quantity and stress systems Teaching: Linguistics 20: Language and Linguistics Linguistics 106/206: Introduction to Phonetics Linguistics 111/211: Introduction to Phonology Linguistics 220: Prosody Linguistics 221A: Field Methods His work emphasizes empirical approaches to phonological systems, often integrating acoustic analysis, perceptual experiments, and fieldwork with Indigenous and minority language communities.
Dr. Silke Hamann is a researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics. Her work bridges phonology and phonetics, focusing on the emergence of phonological features, perceptual cues in segmental contrasts, and the interaction of phonology with orthography and language acquisition. Current projects: diachronic loanword adaptation, congenital amusia's impact on speech perception, Bantu languages (with Nancy Kula and Laura Downing), Catalan studies (with Francesc Torres-Tamarit) Research interests span synchronic/diachronic phonology, phonetic perception, computational modeling of phonological acquisition, and cross-linguistic analysis of retroflex consonants. Her publications analyze phenomena in Korean, Japanese, Bantu languages, German, Portuguese, and Slavic languages, with recurring themes of cue weighting, phonological constraints, and orthographic influence. Recent articles highlight her focus on creaky voice diagnostics, loanword phonotactics, congenital amusia, and Bantu intonation systems. Collaborations with Nancy Kula (Bantu) and Francesc Torres-Tamarit (Catalan) underscore her international research network.
Stefano Quaglia is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Romance Studies , University of Graz. His research focuses on syntax and its interfaces with morphology and semantics , using Italian as a comparative framework within and beyond Romance languages. Email: stefano.quaglia@uni-graz.at Office: Room 003303056, Merangasse 70/III, Graz, Austria Consultation Hours: Wednesday, 3:30-4:30 p.m. Research interests include: Spatial expressions and functional sentence structure Long-distance dependencies Language contact phenomena Particle verbs and clausal organization Wh-movement and information structure Cross-linguistic syntactic analysis Recent publications highlight empirical and theoretical work on verbal theme vowels , Slavic prefix ordering , and L3 transfer dynamics . His studies integrate synchronic analysis with diachronic and contact linguistics frameworks. Articles demonstrate trends in: Syntax-morphology interfaces : Allomorphy, prefix stacking, particle systems Comparative Romance-Slavic analysis : Extraction patterns, convergence phenomena Language acquisition : CLI effects in bilingual/multilingual contexts Prosodic constraints : Stress and phrasing in particle verbs Information structure : Wh-questions in Romance
Hiroshi Shimodaira is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Informatics at The University of Edinburgh, where he has been a faculty member since September 2004. He is affiliated with the Centre for Speech Technology Research (CSTR) and the Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation, contributing to interdisciplinary research in speech and language technologies. His research focuses on lifelike conversational agents with personalities, speech recognition (particularly acoustic models), character recognition, machine learning, and medical-image processing. He is particularly known for his work on anthropomorphic spoken dialogue agents and the development of the Galatea toolkit, an open-source software framework for lifelike conversational agents. His interests also extend to support vector machines and optimization techniques in pattern recognition. The recent publications and projects indicate a strong emphasis on machine learning applied to speech and character recognition, with a trend toward developing intelligent, interactive systems that emulate human conversational behavior. His work bridges theoretical machine learning with practical human-centered applications. Acoustics Society of Japan IEEE Signal Processing Society Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI) IPSJ (Information Processing Society of Japan) Dr. Shimodaira has advised PhD students and led several research initiatives, including the Galatea Project for anthropomorphic dialogue agents and work on handwriting-based communication for the visually impaired. He was previously a co-director of the Intelligent Information Processing Laboratory at JAIST, indicating a sustained record of research leadership. While no specific grants are listed, his project pages suggest involvement in funded research efforts. He leads and contributes to research groups such as CSTR and HCRC, and his lab work focuses on spoken dialogue systems, lifelike agents, and machine learning applications in speech and vision. The Galatea project represents a major software and research output from his team.
Dr. Johanna Rimmele is a Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Leipzig (2012) and has conducted postdoctoral research at institutions including the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York University, and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. Her work focuses on auditory perception, temporal processing, and the neural basis of speech perception. She has received several awards, including the 8th Dissertation Competition in Psychology and the Sign UP! Careerbuilding grant. Her research explores how temporal structure in speech influences neural processing, particularly through the lens of cortical oscillations. She investigates neuroplasticity in sensory deprivation (e.g., blindness) and the interplay between auditory perception and motor systems. Rimmele has authored over 20 peer-reviewed articles and co-edited a book on brain oscillations in human communication. She is affiliated with the CLaME research group and actively contributes to interdisciplinary studies on music, language, and neural mechanisms. Education: PhD in Psychology, University of Leipzig (2008–2012) Visiting Researcher, Albert Einstein College of Medicine (2006–2011) Diploma in Psychology (minor Philosophy), University of Leipzig (2002–2008) Awards & Grants: 8th Dissertation Competition, German Society for Psychology (2013) Sign UP! Careerbuilding MPG Grant (2016/2017) ERASMUS MUNDUS Stipendium (2011–2012) Key Research Themes: Rimmele’s projects address speech-specific neural processing, the role of delta/theta oscillations in speech segmentation, and how rhythmic speech production influences perception. Her work on neuroplasticity in blind individuals highlights cross-modal reorganization of brain networks.
Rob Voigt Assistant Professor of Linguistics and courtesy faculty in Computer Science at Northwestern University, affiliated with the Institute for Policy Research and Cognitive Science Program. Specializes in computational linguistics, focusing on natural language processing (NLP) applied to social science questions including policing, mental health, and immigration. Director of the Linguistic Mechanisms Lab, exploring how language reflects and shapes societal structures. Education PhD in Linguistics (2019), Stanford University Postdoctoral Scholar (2019-2020), Stanford University M.A. in East Asian Studies (2013), Stanford University B.A. in Chinese (2008), Vassar College Research Interests Combines computational methods with sociolinguistics to study: Police-community interaction through body-worn camera data Linguistic markers of procedural justice and racial disparities Language in marginalized communities and social movements LLM applications to clinical language analysis (autism spectrum disorders) Historical discourse analysis of immigration policies Recent Work Recent projects include analyzing 140 years of political immigration rhetoric (PNAS 2022), evaluating officer communication training via bodycam NLP (PNAS Nexus 2024), and developing stereotype analysis pipelines (EMNLP 2024). Active in policy-relevant research through grants on police training (NIJ) and mental health language analysis (NIH). Awards & Recognition Holds Cozzarelli Prize (2017) for groundbreaking policing research and Cialdini Prize for field methods innovation. Recipient of interdisciplinary fellowships from Stanford and NIH grants totaling $8M+. Teaching Current courses include Text Processing for Linguists . Known for ungrading pedagogy emphasizing intrinsic motivation and collaborative learning. Develops open-access computational linguistics curricula using Unix/Python. Labs & Collaborations Linguistic Mechanisms Lab focuses on socially responsible NLP. Collaborates with criminologists, cognitive scientists, and sociologists on projects like the Media Accountability Project (racial disparities in gun violence reporting).
Dr Jose Elias-Ulloa is a Departmental Lecturer in Phonetics and Phonology at the University of Oxford's Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics. His research focuses on the phonetic and phonological aspects of prosody, particularly metrical structure and intonation, and their interaction with segmental phenomena. He specializes in documenting endangered Amazonian languages such as Shipibo-Conibo, Panoan, Quechuan, and Urarina, as well as studying the contact-induced changes in Portuguese/Spanish spoken in Amazonian regions. His fieldwork spans multiple indigenous language families, emphasizing acoustic analysis and language preservation. Dr Elias-Ulloa's affiliations include the Phonetics Lab and Language & Brain Lab at the University of Oxford. His recent work examines intonational patterns in Amazonian Spanish dialects (e.g., La Merced, Pucallpa, Iquitos) and explores phonological processes like spirantization and stress adjustments in contact languages. He has published extensively on topics ranging from non-modal phonation in Boruca to lexical category-governed consonant neutralization in Panoan languages. His research also investigates prosodic influences on segmental phonetics, such as voiced stop spirantization in Peruvian Spanish, and the historical evolution of phonological features in Quechua. He has conducted pioneering studies on loanword adaptation in Shipibo-Konibo, demonstrating phonological stress realignment mechanisms in language contact scenarios.
