Students

Aubry is interested in cognition and language development, particularly focusing on conceptual knowledge and its contribution to language development in infancy and early childhood.

Advisor: Amy Booth

Samira is interested in the neural mechanisms of speech-in-noise perception in populations known to be vulnerable to the effects of noise on speech perception (i.e. children and older adults).  She also explores perceptual and biological demonstrations of auditory plasticity in older adults following short-term training.

Advisor: Nina Kraus

Awards: National Institutes of Health Clinical Loan Repayment Program (2010); National Institutes of Health Translational Research Grant (trainee, 2009-2011); Association for Research in Otolaryngology Mid-Winter Conference Audiology Travel Award (2010); American Auditory Society Annual Meeting Mentored Student Presentation Travel Award (2010); Northwestern University Graduate Research Ignition Grant (2009); National Center for Rehabilitation Auditory Research Conference Travel Award (2009); Aging and Speech Communication Conference Travel Award (2009).

Rachel is currently investigating spontaneous otoacoustic emissions in humans and characterizing their behavior in various environments. Her primary research focus is to investigate how the auditory system relates to cardiovascular health and how this sensory system changes in the presence of cardiovascular disease or decline.

Advisor: Sumitrajit Dhar

James is interested in how adult language acquisition is affected by previous language experience. He is currently examining whether bilinguals manage interference between languages differently than monolinguals during the early stages of adult language acquisition.

Advisor: Viorica Marian

Roozbeh is interested in how humans use auditory feedback information to control their voice. He investigates the brain mechanisms involved in audio-vocal integration for vocal production and control using electroencephalographic (EEG) and ERP techniques.

Advisor: Charles Larson

Christine is a certified Speech-Language Pathologist with 10 years of clinical experience. She aims to pursue research that has a clinical focus. Christine uses fMRI to investigate language and age differences for reading either English or Chinese. She also examines how different instruction methods for training artificial script decoding engage implicit and/or explicit learning modes and result in different linguistic sensitivities. 

Advisors: James Booth, Cynthia Thompson, Patrick Wong

Awards: T32 Training Grant for Translational Research in CSD (2009-2011).

Abby is interested in language development in children with autism spectrum disorders.

Advisor: Molly Losh

Sarah is interested in the effects of bilingualism on broader, non-linguistic cognitive processes.

Advisor: Viorica Marian

Karolina is interested in relating behavioral and objective measures of frequency selectivity of the auditory system in humans. She aims to determine if otoacoustic emissions suppression tuning curves may be used as an objective measure of frequency selectivity.

Advisors: Jon Siegel, Pam Souza

Soojin is interested in the nature and function of structural priming in agrammatic aphasia.

Advisors: Cynthia Thompson, James Booth, Viorica Marian, Zenzi Griffin

Awards: NIDCD Student Fellowship for the Annual Research Symposium (Clinical Aphasiology Conference, 2007, 2009).

Nadia’s previous endeavors have included neuroimaging research using auditory rhyme decision tasks to assess phono-orthographic interaction in children with and without dyslexia.  Her current dissertation research explores the issue of phono-orthographic (linguistic audio-visual) interaction in children with dyslexia versus their typically-achieving peers using rhyme tasks presented auditorily, visually, and a combination of the two.  In addition to literacy and reading research in general, she is interested in bilingual literacy acquisition.  Through her career, she would also like to expand her knowledge of a broad range of developmental disabilities, including issues related to cognitive and life functioning across the lifespan.

Advisor: James Booth

James is interested in enhancing the interpretability and utility of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs). He is currently exploring the relationship between OAE characteristics and psychoacoustic measures, with a focus on effects mediated by the medial olivocochlear efferents.

Advisor: Sumitrajit Dhar

Kate is a certified audiologist pursuing a Ph.D. at Northwestern University to help bridge the gap between laboratory work in the hearing sciences and the world of clinical audiology. She is specifically interested in applying knowledge about the mechanics of the peripheral auditory system to improve assessment and detection of hearing disorders across age populations.

Advisor: Jon Siegel

Awards: John D. and Lucille H. Clarke Scholarship, Northwestern University School of Communication (2009-2010); Mentored Doctoral Student Research Poster Session grant from the National Institute of Health and the American Auditory Society (March, 2008); Illinois Academy of Audiology Student Presenter Award, First Prize (January, 2008).

Eduardo is primarily interested in aphasia recovery and treatment. More specifically, his research centers around the functional reorganization that occurs during recovery and which treatments would be more efficacious for particular language deficits.

Advisor: Cynthia Thompson

Eric's goal is to facilitate speech communication for people with hearing loss by integrating basic science knowledge in hearing research, speech perception, and signal processing. Specifically, he studies how people with hearing loss use time-varying acoustic properties of speech, and the effect of hearing instrument signal processing on the transmission of these time-varying properties into the impaired auditory system.

Advisors: Pam Souza, Frederick Gallun (National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, Portland VA Medical Center)

Jane’s research focuses on how the neural representation of speech is related to reading and speech in noise perception in children. Specifically, she is investigating the effects of classroom FM system use on brainstem encoding of speech in children with severe reading impairments.

Advisor: Nina Kraus

Chien-Ju is interested in patterns and characteristics of the neural correlates of language decline and recovery in aphasia.

Advisor: Cynthia Thompson

Daniella’s research interests include Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disabilities. In particular, she is interested in adults with ADHD and the relationship between prospective memory and executive functions.

Advisor: Steven Zecker

Monique is interested in exploring dissociations in production and comprehension of nouns and verbs for patients with primary progressive aphasia.  She is also interested in treatment of verb retrieval deficits in agrammatism.

Advisors: Cynthia Thompson, Patrick Wong, Steven Zecker

Erica is interested in how music and language interact in the brain and how this can be used to better understand the perception of these systems as well as the mechanisms behind the learning of music and language structure.

Advisor: Patrick Wong

Jiyeon is interested in functional category production and recovery, and on-line analysis of verbs and verb argument structure production.

Advisor: Cynthia Thompson

Sladjana is interested in the neurocognitive mechanisms of language processing in healthy individuals and right hemisphere involvement in recovery from aphasia.

Advisor: Cynthia Thompson

Morgan investigates factors that are important for successful speech recognition in cochlear implant and hearing aid users. She is interested in how to compensate for variations in age and gender when processing speech signals, and identifying acoustic cues to optimize speech recognition in multitalker environments.

Advisor: Pam Souza

Nogah is interested in swallow physiology and swallowing disorders, specifically in esophageal cancer patients.

Advisor: Jeri Logemann

Sherri is interested in the relationship between sound, emotion and neural organization, specifically as it relates to language and music.  She is also interested in the effects of urban vs. rural soundscapes on the central nervous system and emotional processing.

Advisor: Patrick Wong

Alexandra is interested in the effects of musical training and hearing loss on perceptual skills and the subcortical encoding of sound.

Advisor: Nina Kraus

Ellyn’s dissertation is focused on using phonological complexity to train reading in individuals with acquired phonological dyslexia.

Advisors: Cynthia Thompson, Steven Zecker, Matt Goldrick

Awards: Graduate Research Grant from The Graduate School at Northwestern, Research Ignition Grant from Northwestern School of Communication.

Nicole’s interests include the relationship between sensation and swallowing, the role of saliva in swallowing, and overall neurologic control of swallowing. Previous research has examined swallow physiology and perception of swallowing in patients with Sjogren's syndrome. Her dissertation is focused on changes in perception of swallowing, swallow physiology and saliva production that occur after chemoradiation treatment in patients diagnosed with head and neck cancer.

Advisors: Jeri Logemann, Steven Zecker, Charles Larson

Awards: American Speech-Language Hearing Foundation Graduate Student Scholarship, 2006.

Andrew is broadly interested in hearing and audio processing.  His research spans perceptual learning, psychoacoustics, sound localization, and the design of intuitive interfaces for audio processing. Andrew’s dissertation focuses on the perceptual learning of spectral and spectro-temporal modulation detection in individuals with normal and impaired hearing.

Advisor: Beverly Wright

Daphne is interested in connections between language and literacy, specifically African American English and reading achievement.

Advisors: Steven Zecker, Doris Johnson, Jelani Mandara

Awards: School of Communication Graduate Research Ignition Grant (2010); Doris Johnson Graduate Student Prize (2010); Joseph Levin Foundation Scholarship (2009); Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Summer Research Grant (2009); Graduate School Conference Travel Grant (2009, 2010); Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Fellowship (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008); H.R. Myklebust Award (2006).

Scott’s interests are in the relationship between language and cognition.  In particular, he wants to understand how being bilingual influences non-linguistic cognitive abilities.

Advisor: Viorica Marian

Julia’s research interests include the neural mechanisms of language processing, particularly in relation to the neurobiology of recovery in aphasia.

Advisor: Cynthia Thompson

Anthony is interested in cross-linguistic interaction in bilinguals, at any/all levels of processing (phonology, orthography, syntax, etc.), computational and conceptual modeling of the bilingual language processing system, and cross-modal or audio-visual integration of language information.  He is also interested in more super-segmental language information like tone, intonation, and prosody, and how these factors influence bilingual language processing.

Advisor: Viorica Marian

Awards: John D. and Lucille H. Clarke Scholarship.

Jessica is interested in how people learn to "speak music" -- specifically, the mechanisms underlying musical learning, and connections between music and language.

Advisor: Nina Kraus