My research interests lie primarily in phonetics and phonology, particularly the representation of phonological speech segments, and how their realization in speech relates to both invariant or abstract levels of control and dynamic, variable, uncontrolled aspects.
My current research examines the articulatory control of stops in Spanish. Both voiced and voiceless stops exhibit lenition or weakening in many dialects. My work has shown that the lenition of the voiced stops can be seen the consequence of an invariant constriction goal that leads to productions of either a full or undershot stop depending on the duration of the movement. I am currently working on a project extending this analysis to the wide-spread (but more variable) voicing of phonologically voiceless stops. I have developed a novel method using ultrasound to visualize the larynx and vocal folds during speech in order to quanitfy the relationship between duration and magnitude of glottal opening.
I am also interested in coordination, timing, durational control in speech, and the relationship between spatial and temporal variablity. Some of my other projects have focused on coordination between speech and non-speech motor systems and how prosody and emphasis can effect both systems, coordinative instability in speech, and examining how to quantify the effects of prosodic structure on speech timing.