I am an ASHA certified speech and language pathologist with a PhD in Communicative Sciences and Disorders from New York University. My overarching research goal is to leverage novel technologies to boost treatment outcomes for individuals with speech disorders. My general areas of research interest include acoustic and articulatory properties of speech sounds and perception of non-native phonemic contrasts.

My current position as a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Adeen Flinker’s speech electrocorticography lab is part of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. My first project in this lab was measuring the timing and location of speech interruptions observed during a clinical electrocortical stimulation task. I presented this work at the 2022 Society for the Neurobiology of Language conference and a manuscript describing the results was recently published in Brain Communications (see press release).

My independent project in the Flinker Lab is titled “Cortical and Subcortical Underpinnings of Typical and Dysarthric Speech” and is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIDCD Grant F32DC021094, PI: H. Kabakoff; Sponsor: A. Flinker; Co-Sponsors: C. Niziolek & C. Stepp). In this project, I am using electrocorticography to investigate the neural mechanisms behind response to perturbations in auditory feedback in patients with Epilepsy. I am also looking at behavioral responses to the same perturbation task in patients with dysarthric speech. This exploration of untapped synergies within sensorimotor systems in clinical populations will inform the development of future therapeutic tools, including neuromodulation to enhance altered auditory feedback paradigms to drive behavioral changes in individuals with dysarthria.

In my predoctoral studies in Dr. Tara McAllister’s Biofeedback Intervention Technology for Speech (BITS) lab, I investigated perception and production in children with speech sound disorder. My dissertation research was titled “Establishing the Role of Sensorimotor Skills in Speech Development and Disorders” and was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIDCD Grant F31DC018197, PI: H. Kabakoff; Sponsor: T. McAllister; Co-Sponsor: D.H. Whalen). As a research rotation, I worked in Dr. Susannah Levi’s Acoustic Phonetics and Perception Lab on a perceptual training experiment.

Complete List of Published Work in MyBibliography, Google Scholar, and ORCiD.