Congratulations to Del Amo Fellowship Recipients

Graduate students Mythili Menon and Sergio Robles-Puente are both recent recipients of the Del Amo Fellowship for travel to Spain.

Mythili will give a talk at Sinn und Bedeutung 18, which will be held at the University of the Basque Country from September 11-13, 2013. The talk will be called:

The Grammatical Life of Property Concepts in Malayalam
Mythili Menon & Roumyana Pancheva

Sergio presented a poster at Phonetics and Phonology in Iberia 2013, which was held at the University of Lisbon from June 25 - 26, 2013. The poster was called:

The Rhythmic and Intonational Properties of Spanish/English Bilinguals in California
Sergio Robles-Puente

Congratulations to both of our Del Amo fellowship Recipients!

USC presence at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics

The 21st International Congress on Acoustics, combining the 165th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the 52nd meeting of the Canadian Acoustical Association, was held in Montréal, Quebec, Canada from June 2 - 7, 2013 at the Palais des congrès de Montréal.

The congress was an opportunity for people from a number of different fields and backgrounds to present recent work in acoustics. 

USC had several representatives in attendance and presenting posters at the ICA (unless otherwise noted, authors are from the USC Linguistics department):

On instantaneous vocal tract length estimation from formant frequencies
Adam Lammert (SAIL) and Shrikanth Narayanan (SAIL)

The use of mixed effects models in quantifying the dynamics of speech
Khalil Iskarous

An examination of the articulatory characteristics of prominence in function and content words using real-time magnetic resonance imaging
Zhaojun Yang (Elecrtical Engineering), Vikram Ramanarayanan (Electrical Engineering), Dani Byrd, and Shri Narayanan (Elecrtical Engineering)

Prosodic characteristics of two focus types in emphatic context in Thai
Alif Silpachai

Downstep Exceptions in Ibibio
Afton Coombs

Articulatory overlap in English syllables with postvocalic / ɹ/
Rachel Walker and Michael Proctor (University of Western Sydney)

Pharyngeal constriction in English diphthong production
Fang-Ying Hsieh, Louis Goldstein, Dani Byrd, and Shrikanth Narayanan (Electrical Engineering)

Does articulatory setting provide some mechanical advantage for speech motor action?
Vikram Ramanarayanan (Electrical Engineering), Adam Lammert (Electrical Engineering), Louis Goldstein, and Shrikanth Narayanan (Electrical Engineering)

On distinguishing articulatory configurations and articulatory tasks: Tamil retroflex consonants
Caitlin Smith, Michael Proctor (University of Western Sydney), Khalil Iskarous, Louis Goldstein, and Shrikanth Narayanan (Electrical Engineering)

Effects of prosodic strengthening and lexical boundary on /s/-stop sequences in English
Cynthia Lee

A comparative cross-linguistic study of vocal tract shaping in sibilant fricatives in English, Serbian and Mandarin using real-time magnetic resonance imaging
Li Hsuan Lu (Electrical Engineering), Adam Lammert (Electrical Engineering), Vikram Ramanarayanan (Electrical Engineering), and Shrikanth Narayanan (Electrical Engineering)

Developmental aspects of American English diphthong trajectories in the formant space
Sungbok Lee (Electrical Engineering), Alexandros Potamianos (Technical University of Crete), and Shrikanth Narayanan (Electrical Engineering)

Prosodic effects on speech gestures: A shape analysis based on functional data analysis
Christine Mooshammer, Lasse Bombien (Ludwig Maximilian University), Jelena Krivokapic (University of Michigan, USC Alumna 2007)

Towards a model of intonational phonology of Turkish: Neutral intonation
Canan Ipek and Sun-ah Jun (UCLA)

Cynthia Lee (second from left) discusses her poster with a conference attendee 

Afton Coombs (right) discusses her poster with Rachel Walker (left) and Li Hsuan Lu, a USC Electrical Engineering undergraduate student (center)

Alif Silpachai with his ICA poster

 Congratulations to all who attended and presented posters!

Congratulations to Cynthia Lee!

Congratulations to second-year graduate student Cynthia Lee on winning second place -- and a cash prize! -- for Best Student Paper in Speech Communication at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics. Her paper is titled:

"Effects of Prosodic Strengthening and Lexical Boundary on /s/-stop Sequences in English"

Great job, Cynthia!

Cynthia with her poster at the ICA.

Congratulations to Joyce Perez

Joyce Perez

Joyce Perez, the Linguistics Department's longtime Student Services Advisor, has recently stepped down from her post in the Linguistics Department to accept a new position with USC's Keck School of Medicine. 

Joyce has guided countless linguistics students from their acceptance into the program through commencement, and her presence -- not to mention her personality, patience, ability, and enthusiasm -- will be greatly missed by everyone in the Department. 

As a token of GSIL's appreciation for all of her dedication, Joyce was presented with a customized cooler, which we hope she will enjoy at future Trojans football tailgating events and games.

Joyce's custom GSIL/Trojans cooler

We wish Joyce continued success in her new position with the Keck School. Congratulations and best of luck, Joyce!