UT Sound Lab 2019
Lab Director
Rajka Smiljanic (PI)
Email: rajka@austin.utexas.edu
Current members
Graduate students
Sandie Keerstock, LIN
Sandie is a 5th-year Ph.D. student in Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. She joined the lab in Fall 2015. Her research focuses on first and second language speech perception and production and auditory memory. Her dissertation looks at how L1 and L2 speakers/listeners remember speech of varying intelligibility. She enjoys science-fiction and singing in noraebang (karaoke).
Email: sandiekeerstock@gmail.com
Kirsten Meemann, LIN
Kirsten is a 5th-year Ph.D. student in Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on speech perception and language processing. In particular, she is interested in the effect of clear speech and different types of noise on speech perception, and in the role of cognitive mechanisms to cope with such noise. In her spare time, she enjoys reading thrillers, listening to podcasts, and running (despite the Texas heat). Email: kirsten.meemann@gmail.com
Zhe-Chen Guo, LIN
Zhe-chen Guo is a 2nd-year Ph.D. student in Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the lab in Fall 2018. His research focuses on prosody and speech perception. Currently, he is interested in how listeners use prosodic information to accomplish speech segmentation and how different listening conditions affect their segmentation performance. In his free time, he enjoys cooking and writing codes for fun.
Email: y9024131@gmail.com
Sarah Ransom-Laud, LIN
Sarah is a first-year Ph.D. student in Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. She joined the lab in Spring 2019. She is interested in speech perception, lexical architecture, and prosody. Outside of research, she enjoys playing music, writing songs, and gardening.
Undergraduate Students
Gabrielle Shaddock
Gabrielle is a 4th-year Linguistics major at the University of Texas at Austin. She joined the lab in 2018. After graduation, she plans to attend graduate school to study phonetics and phonology. In her free time, Gabrielle enjoys playing music, learning languages, and playing board games. Gabrielle is in second first semester with the UTSoundLab.
Email: gdshaddock@gmail.com
Frida Ballard
Frida is a 3rd-year undergraduate student with a double major in French and Linguistics. She joined the lab in 2018. In her free time, she likes to work in many visual arts media, watch movies, and attempt to cook international food.
Email: frida.ballard@gmail.com
Meryl Xiong
Meryl is a 3rd-year double-majoring in Linguistics and Management. You can often find her at a concert, playing board games, or attempting to bake. She started her first semester in the UTSoundLab in Spring 2019.
Email: mlx59@utmail.utexas.edu
Alexandra Brown
Alexandra is a 3rd-year at the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in Linguistics and pursuing a certificate in Computer Science. She joined the lab in Spring 2019. In her free time she likes to read, play tennis and soccer, and watch scary movies.
Email: asb3456@utexas.edu
Riley Pruden
Riley is a 3rd-year Linguistics Major at the University of Texas at Austin with a minor in Anthropology. She joined the lab in Spring 2019. In her free time, she loves to play ultimate frisbee with the UT women’s team and listen to music.
Email: rileyelisep@gmail.com
Lab alumni
Graduate Students & Postdocs
Steven Alcorn, SPN
Last known position: Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Indiana University at Bloomington
Niamh Kelly, LIN
Last known position: Assistant Professor, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Cindy Blanco, LIN
Last known position: Learning Scientist, Duolingo
Rachael Gilbert, LIN
Last known position: Principal Data Scientist at Trello
Kristin Van Engen, Postdoc
Last known position: Assistant Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Washington University
Elisa Ferracane, LIN
Last known position: PhD program, Linguistics, UT
Hoyoung Yi, CSD
Last known position: Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Gayatri Rao, PSYCH
Last known position: Assistant Director of Reporting and Analytics, UT
Matthias Sjerps, visiting graduate student
Last known position: Researcher at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Radboud University Nijmegen
Lauren Ayres, Graduate CSD
Natalia Czimskey, Graduate CSD
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Irene Smith, LIN
Last known position: Environmental Sciences Lab, Applied Research Labs, UT
Luis De La Cruz, LIN, English
Last known position: Teach for America, Roma High School, Rio Grande Valley
Jai Lyn Pena, LIN
Last known position: PhD program, Linguistics, New York University
Kevin Lilley, LIN
Last known position: PhD program, Linguistics, Ohio State University
Sarah Blackshear, LIN
Last known position: Ads Integrity Analyst, Accenture, Austin, TX
Marina Gavino, LIN
Last known position: PhD program, Linguistics, Northwestern University
Kaylee Kocurek
Olivia Naworol
Liliana Terry, LIN
Last known position: Software Engineering Intern at Microsoft
Hannah Ray, LIN
Lauren Franklin, LIN
Last known position: PhD program, Dept of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences, Brown
Maddie Oakley, French
Last known position: PhD program, Linguistics, Georgetown
Emily Tagtow, LIN
Andrea Manrique, LIN
Last known position: Paralegal at Briggle & Polan , PLLC, Austin, TX.
N. Garcia-Holmes, LIN
Last known position: Assistant for Operations at The University of Texas at Austin
Michelle Dubois, LIN, Dean’s Distinguished Graduate (College of Liberal Arts) 2016.
Last known position: Spanish instructor, Freestyle Language Center, Austin, TX.
Gaby Cook, CSD
Cristabella Trimble-Quiz, LIN
Karen Johnson, CSD
Last known position: Northwest Elementary School, Pflugerville Independent School District
Jose Martinez
Kiki Adams, LIN
Corina Trevino, LIN / CSD Intellectual Entrepreneurship internship program
Aidan Aannestad, LIN
Nicholas Victor, CSD
Samantha Sebastian, LIN
Anais Callejon, LIN
Randall Rouse, LIN
Gabriela Saenz, CSD
Rob Corona, LIN
Lauren Burleson, LIN
Johanna Emily Boardman, LIN
Jasmine Beitz, CSD
Samantha Gordon Danner, LIN
Last known position: PhD program, Linguistics, USC
Lab pictures
