Lab Managers

Christi Gomez
Christi received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Penn State University in 1998. After receiving her degree, Christi returned to her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. Christi joined us in February 2001 as our Laboratory Manager.

Anthony Kelly
Before coming to work in the Speech Perception and Learning Laboratory, Anthony taught English as second language in France for a number of years. He earned his B.A. in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University in 1986 and studied linguistics and translation (French - English) at Universite Paris IV.

Post-Doctoral Researchers

Dan Hufnagle
Dan aims to better understand how the mind transforms linguistic input into systematic knowledge of language patterns. Dan investigates the impact on learning of aspects of language input such as variability, repetition, and phonetic cues to grammatical category. Dan earned his Ph.D. at the University of Calgary.

Graduate Students

Jingyuan (Sofia) Huang
Jingyuan is interested in the interaction between the perception of first and second languages. She also has interests in first and second language acquisition. Jingyuan got her BS in psychology from Beijing Normal University.

Sara Guediche
Sara Guediche is a member of Dr. Julie Fiez’s laboratory at University of Pittsburgh and a graduate student in the Center for Neuroscience University of Pittsburgh program. In her dissertation research, Sara is conducting investigations of the adaptive plasticity of speech perception which she will later extend to functional neuroimaging methods.

Sung-Joo Lim
Sung-joo has a B.S. in Computer Science from CMU. She is interested in studying auditory perception. She would specifically like to study the similarities between language and music and how music affects human emotion and memory.

Erika JCL Taylor
Erika is interested in the auditory cortical processing of speech perception, specifically the mechanisms underlying speech sound categorization. She's currently using electrophysiological methods (ERP and MEG) to examine these mechanisms, and plans to eventually incorporate functional neuroimaging methods as well. Erika got her B.S. in Cognitive Science from CMU in 2001.

Lab Alumni

Former Post-Doctoral Researchers

Dr. Kaori Idemaru
- University of Oregon

Dr. Travis Wade
- Currently at Posit Science Corporation & Institut für Maschinelle Spachverarbeitung, Universität Stuttgart

Former Graduate Students

Dr. Erin Ingvalson, PhD
Dr. Dan Mirman, PhD
- Currently director of the Language and Cognitive Dynamics Laboratory at Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute
Dr. Joseph D.W. "Beau" Stephens, PhD
- Currently a post-doctoral research at Ohio State University
Dr. Vivienne L. Ming, PhD
- Currently a visiting scholar at the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at UC Berkeley

Former Undergraduate Researchers

Kathleen Agres (2002 - 2005)
Zeljka Buturovic Bradaric (2000 - 2002)
Siobhan Cooney (2000 - 2002)
Monica Data (2002 - 2002)
Nina Durai (2003 - 2004)
Ashley Episcopo (2002 - 2004)
Josh Fishbein (2005)
Brian Frederick (2000 - 2002)
Sara Guediche (2004 - 2004)
Sara Kapner (2003 - 2005)
Ayus Kennedy (2005 - 2006)
Camilla Kydland(2002 - 2003)
Erika Laing (2000 - 2002)
Chris Laskowski
Brian Leahy (2003 - 2004)
Brian Levinthal (2002 - 2003)
Seth Liber (2001 - 2003)
Ran Liu (2007 - 2008)
Brian Mathias (2004 - 2007)
Laura Mazurkewicz (2002 - 2004)
Neha Mehta (2005 - 2006)
Wendy Niedelman (2004 - 2007)
Megan Nisargandi (2007 - 2008)
Eva Stroynowski (2002 - 2004)
Eric To (2001 - 2002)
Jodi Poniewaz (2001 - 2001)
Jeremy Wortman (2002 - 2003)