Invited Speakers

We are very pleased to welcome 7 invited speakers to LabPhon 20!  Below you will find some information about each of them.  

Dr. Kie Zuraw, University of California, Los Angeles

Bio: Dr. Kie Zuraw is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at UCLA, with research interests that include computational and quantitative approaches to phonology, the relationship of phonological grammar to processing, the phonology of code-mixing and loanwords, linguistic evidence from music, and Austronesian languages. She first attended LabPhon in New Haven, CT, USA in 2002.

Dr. Mark Amengual, University of California, Santa Cruz

Bio:  Dr. Mark Amengual is Professor and Chair of the Department of Languages and Applied Linguistics and Director of the Bilingualism Research Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Recent publications have appeared in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Journal of Phonetics, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, Phonetica, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, International Journal of Bilingualism, Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, and Applied Psycholinguistics. He is also the editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology (Cambridge University Press, 2024).  LabPhon 20 will be Dr. Amengual's first LabPhon.

Dr. Naomi Feldman, University of Maryland

Bio:  Dr. Naomi Feldman is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, where she is a member and former director of the Computational Linguistics and Information Processing (CLIP) Lab.  Her research uses methods from machine learning and automatic speech recognition to formalize questions about how people learn and represent the structure of their language.  She primarily uses these methods to study speech representations, modeling the cognitive processes that support learning and perception of speech sounds in the face of highly complex and variable linguistic input. She also computationally characterizes the strategies that facilitate language acquisition more generally, both from the perspective of learners, and from the perspective of clinicians. LabPhon 20 will be Dr. Feldman's first LabPhon.

Dr. Katie Franich, Harvard University

Bio:  Dr. Kathryn Franich is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Harvard University, and an affiliate of both the Mind, Brain, Behavior Institute and the Center for African Studies there. Her cross-linguistic work, much of it focused on languages of West and Central Africa, aims to uncover the linguistic structures and cognitive mechanisms that facilitate our ability to coordinate speech in the context of gesture, music, dance, and other motor behaviors. Her first LabPhon was LabPhon 14 in Tokyo, Japan in 2014.

Dr. Susanne Fuchs, Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft

Bio:  Dr. Susanne Fuchs is a member of the Laboratory Phonology group at the Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin, where she investigates speech motor control, articulatory coordination, multimodality and speech breathing. She received her Ph.D. from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, focusing on the phonological voicing contrast in German. Her postdoctoral work at GIPSA-lab in Grenoble deepened her interest in speech biomechanics. She has contributed to language documentation in Vanuatu, served as Vice Director of ZAS, was an international chair for LABEX in Paris, a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies & ILCB chair in Marseille, a member of the ViCom steering committee and AcademiaNet. She also serves as associate editor for The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and is on the editorial board of JIPA. Dr. Fuchs' first LabPhon was in Paris, France in 2006.

Dr. Taehong Cho, Hanyang University

Bio:  Dr. Taehong Cho is Baiknam Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at Hanyang University (Seoul) and Director of the Hanyang Institute for Phonetics and Cognitive Sciences of Language (HIPCS). He is also the founder of the international conference HISPhonCog. Dr. Cho received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from UCLA in 2001 and served as a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics from 2001 to 2005. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Phonetics (2016–2024) and has been one of the series editors of Studies in Laboratory Phonology since 2014. His research focuses on the interplay between phonetics and prosody from both articulatory and perceptual perspectives, and among his highly cited works is his collaboration with the late Peter Ladefoged on Variation and Universals in VOT. Dr. Cho's first LabPhon was LabPhon 6 in York, England in 1998.

Dr. Bob McMurray, University of Iowa

Bio:  Dr. Bob McMurray earned a BA in Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Studies from Cornell University in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Science at the University of Rochester (2004).  He is currently the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa. He studies language processing across the lifespan – from young children to adults -- in domains including speech perception, reading, and word learning.  He investigates typical people, as well as people with language, reading and hearing disorders using methods from psycholinguistics, cognitive neurosciences, phonetics and computational modeling.  Dr. McMurray's first LabPhon was LabPhon 9 in Champaign, IL, USA in 2004.  He recalls writing good chunks of his dissertation, which was due that month, between sessions.