Be on the lookout for a new paper to appear in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. The title is “Individual differences in distributional learning for speech: What’s ideal for ideal observers?” This work was conducted in collaboration with Ph.D. student Nick Monto and lab B.A./M.A. alum Stephen Graham. Reach out to rachel.theodore@uconn.edu if you’d like a preprint. Congratulations, Nick and Stephen!

The SLaP Lab was well represented at the ASA meeting in Louisville. Nick and Nikole, Ph.D. students in our lab, presented posters relaying their recent discoveries (available here), and Dr. Theodore gave a talk at a special session titled “Exploring the interface between linguistic processing and talker recognition.” A live-tweet of the session can be read here; and here is a link to Dr. Theodore’s talk with a transcript of sorts (as she was the one tweeting). Thanks, ASA community, for a week filled with lively discussion (and a few mint juleps)!

Dr. Theodore will begin a three-year term as Associate Editor for Speech Communication at Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Express Letters (JASA-EL) on July 1, 2019.

Be on the lookout for a new paper to appear in JASA Express Letters. The title is “Structured phonetic variation facilitates talker identification.” This work was conducted in collaboration with Ms. Divya Ganugapati in conjunction with her SHARE award from OUR. Reach out to rachel.theodore@uconn.edu if you’d like a preprint. Congratulations, Divya!

Elizabeth O’Brien successfully defended her M.A. thesis today. The title of her thesis is “He said, she said: Talker as context for semantic integration of spoken language in memory.” Congratulations, Liz!

We extend a warm welcome to Lee Drown, who will join the SLaP Lab as a Ph.D. student this fall. Lee is currently completing her M.A. in speech-language pathology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Lee will join us as a member of the inaugural cohort of the CNC-CT training program, supported by the recently awarded NIH/NIDCD T32 training grant. We are so excited to welcome her to our group!

UConn researchers have been awarded a 5-year training grant from the NIH/NIDCD. The CNC-CT program, directed by Drs. Inge-Marie Eigsti and Emily Myers, will provide training in the neuroscience of communication for predoctoral and postdoctoral scholars. The mentorship team is comprised of an interdisciplinary faculty that also includes Drs. Richard Aslin, Deborah Fein, Roeland Hancock, Fumiko Hoeft, Nicole Landi, James Magnuson, Jay Rueckl, Erika Skoe, and Rachel Theodore. Learn more here and here!

 

Emma Hungaski has received the Geraldine Garrison Scholarship from the Connecticut Speech and Hearing Foundation, and will be recognized at the Connecticut Speech and Hearing Association annual convention on April 11, 2019. This award reflects Emma’s deep accomplishments as an undergraduate scholar. Emma is COGS/SLHS dual-major, an Honors student, and a long-standing member of the SLaP Lab. She is also an Associate Editor of the Daily Campus, and a frequent contributor of insightful articles. Congratulations, Emma!