Principal Investigator
Jun Wang, PhD
Dr. Jun Wang is the principal investigator of the UT Austin Speech Disorders & Technology Lab. Dr. Wang earned his PhD in Computer Science with a cross training in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Nebraska — Lincoln in December 2011. After a half-a-year postdoc training at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and University of Nebraska - Lincoln, he joined UT Dallas Callier Center for Communication Disorders as a Research Scientist in 2012 and then became an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2014. He joined UT Austin in summer 2019.
Dr. Wang is currently an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and in the Department of Neurology. He is also a GSC member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Research Staff
Anusha Thomas, PhD
Anusha Thomas is a visiting scholar in the lab. She earned her PhD in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2013, and has been involved in research projects with UT Dallas Callier Center for Communication Disorders. Her research background is in kinematic measures and speech movements in motor speech disorders. She is currently working with acoustic measures in motor speech disorder due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
Wendy Liang, MS, CCC-SLP
Wendy is a visiting scientist in the lab. She holds a Masters of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders from New York University, and completed a combined clinical research fellowship at University of Florida. She is currently a speech language pathologist practicing in the acute care and outpatient medical settings at several hospitals in Austin, TX. Wendy is also the founder and president of 501(C)3 nonprofit, Burgundy & White, an organization supporting the head and neck cancer community. Wendy currently involves in a number of projects including articulatory patterns of laryngectomees and dysarthric speech analysis.
Kristin Teplansky, PhD
Kristin Teplansky, PhD, is a visiting scientist in the lab. She earned a PhD in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences from UT Austin in 2023 and her bachelor’s degree in speech-language pathology and audiology from Callier Center for Communication Disorders at UT Dallas in 2014. She has worked as a speech therapist in the North Dallas area. Kristin’s current research focus is on motor speech disorders due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) using kinematic and acoustic measures. Kristin is also part of the silent speech project with a focus on tongue and lip motion patterns of silent and normal speech.
Jinuk Kwon, PhD
Jinuk Kwon is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab. He earned his Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering at Hanyang University, South Korea, in 2023 and joined the lab that Fall. Given his research background in deep learning-based biomedical signal processing, his research is currently focusing on algorithm development for biosignal-based speech interfaces. His ongoing projects include silent speech interfaces that utilize articulatory signals and neural speech decoding using brain waves.
Carl Sigmond
Carl Sigmond is a Research Engineer in the lab. He majored in Computer Science at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, where he researched alternative forms of text entry for people with physical disabilities. He is the inventor and principal developer of LeverBoard, an adaptive keyboard and mouse which he uses as his primary text input device. Carl focuses on automatic speech recognition (ASR) for people with dysarthria and the silent speech interface project. In addition to his role in the lab, Carl is the Operations Manager at FREED, a disability resource center in northern California, and is Host and Executive Producer of the Disability Rap radio show and podcast. He is based in New York State.
Graduate Students
Keerthana Stanley
Keerthi is a PhD student in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and a graduate research assistant in the lab. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from UT Dallas in 2023. Her research interests include better understanding the cognitive processes underlying speech planning and production as well as speech kinematics, both typical and disordered.
Garvit Mohata
Garvit Mohata is a graduate student studying Computer Science at UT Austin. He is interested in general-purpose learning and reasoning using machine learning for text, video and speech modalities. He joined the lab in Fall 2022 and is working on neural speech decoding using brain wave (OPM-MEG) signals as well as on the silent speech interface project. His hobbies include singing, playing sports and learning new things.
Undergradaute Students
Sidh Pandit
Sidh Pandit is an undergraduate studying Management Information Systems at UT Austin. He is interested in using data science to build products that help individuals with conditions that affect speech. He joined the lab in Fall 2022 and primarily works on speech kinematic data processing and analysis using machine learning for the ALS and the silent speech interface projects. Sidh is also a caregiver and works at Camp CAMP, a summer camp for people with disabilities.
Emily Rangel
Emily Rangel is an undergraduate student studying speech, language, and hearing sciences at UT Austin. She’s been with the lab since Spring 2023. She wishes to contribute to research to transform the lives of individuals with speech disorders and is helping with data pre-processing for the automatic speech recognition project, data collection for the silent speech interface project, and ALS data processing. Emily is passionate about advocating for individuals with speech disorders in her daily life, and is eager to learn about the subject through her experiences with SDTL. Her goal is to attend graduate school and become a speech-language pathologist.
Zoe McKnight
Zoe McKnight is a senior studying Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. She joined the team in Summer of 2023 and works on data processing of speech samples as well as assistance to data collection. Zoe wishes to help individuals with speech impairment communicate effectively in their everyday lives. She is also the Community Engagement Coordinator for the National Student Speech, Language, and Hearing Association at UT. She enjoys volunteering, walking her dog Stella, and reading in her spare time.
Daniela Rodriguez-Orozco
Daniela is an undergraduate Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences student and has been with the lab since Fall 2023. She is assisting with data collection and processing for the silent speech interface project, with an emphasis on bilingual English-Spanish speakers. She is involved in the National Student Speech Language and Hearing Association and the Lang Stuttering Institute Student Leadership Organization. She is passionate about effective communication for all, especially through the use of assistive technology. She plans to attend graduate school to become a bilingual speech-language pathologist.
Collaborators
Sara G. Austin, MD, FAAN
Department of Neurology, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin
Abbas Babajani-Feremi, PhD
Department of Neurology, University of Florida
Amir Borna, PhD
AO Sensing & EC Engineering, Sandia National Laboratories
Clifford S. Calley, MD
Department of Neurology, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin
MEG Lab, Dell Children’s Hospital
Kristi Dehaan, M.S., CCC-SLP
San Antonio ENT Clinics
Paul Ferrari, PhD
Jack H. Miller MEG Center, Helen DeVos Children's Hospital
College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University
Lisa Goffman, PhD, CCC-SLP
Callier Center for Communication Disorders, University of Texas at Dallas
Jordan R. Green, PhD, CCC-SLP
Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, MGH Institute of Health of Professions
Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University
David Harwath, PhD
Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin
Daragh Heitzman, MD, FAAN
MDA/ALS Center, Texas Neurology
Lori Henkener, M.A., CCC-SLP
San Antonio ENT Clinics
Omer T. Inan, PhD
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Rosemary A. Lester-Smith, PhD, CCC-SLP
Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Texas at Austin
Ted Mau, MD, PhD
Department of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Robin Samlan, PhD, CCC-SLP
Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona
Z. Mike Yang, MD
Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, UT Health San Antonio
Alumni
Dr. Zhe-chen Guo, PhD in Linguistics from UT and a visiting student in the lab, now a postdoc at Northwestern University
Dr. Debadatta Dash, PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, now a postdoc research fellow at NINDS, NIH.
Dr. Alan Wisler, Postdoctoral Research Associate, now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Utah State University, Logan, UT
Dr. Myungjong Kim, Postdoctoral Research Associate, now a Staff Machine Learning Researcher at Samsung Research America, Mountain View, CA
Dr. Seongjun Hahm, Postdoctoral Research Associate, now a Principal Research Scientist at Marchex, Seattle, WA
Alena Portnova, graduate student in Communication Sciences at Utah State University, was a Fulbright Scholar and Muskie Fellow summer intern in the lab
Sharvi Ravi, undergraduate student in Computer Science, UT Austin
Avery Singson, undergraduate student in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University
Riya Ghosal, undergraduate student in Neuroscience and pre-med, UT Austin
Natalie Young, undergraduate research assistant in the lab, now a graduate (MS) student in the UT Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences program
Brian Tsang, graduate student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, now a Software Development Engineer in Amazon
Chloe G. Proshuto, undergraduate student in Communication Sciences and Disorders, UT Austin
Regina Treviño, undergraduate research assistant in the lab, now a graduate student at Texas Christian University in the Bilingual Emphasis Program
Elizabeth "Mackenzie" Finch, undergraduate student in Communication Sciences and Disorders, UT Austin
Hailey Shuman, undergraduate research assistant in the lab, now a graduate student at Northwestern University
Megan Welsh, undergraduate student in Speech-Language Pathology, UT Austin
Evelyn Trejo, undergraduate student in Neuroscience and on a pre-medical track, UT Austin
Avi Patel, undergraduate student in Finance on pre-dental track, UT Austin
Amulya Makonahalli, undergraduate in Biology, UT Austin
Ryan Larson, undergraduate student in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, UT Austin
Taylor Garcia, undergraduate student in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, UT Austin
Anurag Patil, Master student in Computational Science and Mathematics at the Oden Institute of Computational Engineering and Sciences, UT Austin
Satwik Dutta, Master studnet in Electrical and Computer Engineering, UT Dallas, now a PhD student
Siva Saket Sripada, Master student in Biomedical Engineering, UT Dallas, now a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering, UT Austin
Thouseef Syed, Master student in Applied Cognition & Neuroscience, UT Dallas, now a Bot Developer at Verizon.
Mufang Sang, PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, UT Dallas
Danny Chen, summer intern 2019, Plano West Senior High School, Plano, TX, now an undergrdaute student in Computer Science at Texas A&M University
Tim Chen, summer intern 2019, Lebanon Trail High School, Frisco, TX
Shruthi B. Dubagunta, undergradaute student in Biomedical Engineering, UT Dallas
Richard (Jun) Wang, Master's student in Computer Science at UT Dallas, now an Applied Scientist at Amazon, Boston, MA
KwangHoon An, Master’s student in Computer Science at UT Dallas, now a System Integration Engineer at the Machine Learning Team, Qualcomm Inc. San Diego, CA
Kevin D. Tran, undergraduate student in Biomedical Engineering, UT Dallas, then a graduate student at Johns Hopkins Univeristy.
Meagan E. Furth, undergraduate student in Biomedical Engineering, UT Dallas
Jihye Moon, undergraduate summer intern in 2017, now a Master's student in Biomedical Engineering, Jungwon University, South Korea
Heather Xiao, undergraduate student in biology and the UT-PACT program, UT Dallas
Prasanna Kothalkar, PhD student in Computer Engineering, UT Dallas
Katie Purdum, Master’s student in Biomedical Engineering, UT Dallas
Saara Raja, Master’s student in Cognitive Neuroscience, UT Dallas, now a Risk Management Analytic Consultant at Wells Fargo Bank, NC.
Braden Herndon, Master’s student in Computer Science, now a software developer at Match Dot Com, Dallas, TX
Kumail Haider, undergraduate assistant, Biochemistry, UT Dallas
Soujanya Koduri, undergraduate assistant, Psychology, UT Dallas
Denisse Amaranta Soler Morales, undergraduate summer intern in 2015, Biomedical Engineering, Monterrey Institute of Technology, Guadalajara, Mexico
Victoria Juarez, Master’s student in Communication Sciences and Disorders, UT Dallas