My research focuses on the motor processes that underlie normal and disordered speech production.  Currently, I am pursuing two general lines of work.  One line involves developing a better understanding of how healthy speakers coordinate and scale respiratory, phonatory and articulatory motor activity to produce fluent, intelligible speech.  For example, some recent work has focused on the articulatory adjustments speakers make as they vary factors such as speaking rate, loudness and phonetic structure.  A second line of work studies speech motor processes in adults who stutter.  Recent studies have focused on investigating coordination strategies of stutterers and non-stutterers, evaluating speech motor changes following stuttering treatment, and developing typologies of stutterers based on speech motor behavior.  

The Department has a number of large speech databases that can serve to address a variety of research questions.  Also, we have a well-developed speech physiology laboratory that is equipped for recording speech acoustics, chest wall, vocal fold and oral articulatory motion, orofacial muscle activity and speech-related aerodynamic events.  Therefore there are a variety of opportunities for those interested in exploring the acoustic and physiological bases of speech production.