Electronic IDs: 

• Google Scholar: click here 
• OrcID: 0000-0002-8494-6025
• Networks: ResearchGate

Interests: I am interested in a wide variety of phenomena related to human and machine communication with speech. Most of my research has to do with speaker specific (indexical) information in the speech signal and how humans and machines can use such information to recognize individuals. While I worked on the applications of such knowledge in applied areas such as forensic phonetics, I recently became more and more interested in the interaction between indexical and linguistic information in human communication. Please find more information about my research, publications, teaching, software under these links or in the menu to the left.

Employment: Since August 2010 I am researching and teaching Phonetics and Speech Sciences at Zurich University (UZH) in Switzerland and occasionally work as an expert witness in forensic phonetics on a freelance basis. Previously I was lecturer in phonetics and speech sciences at University College London (2003-2010) and worked as a consultant and project manager in digital signal processing projects for iQuest Ltd. London. Before that I had research assistant posts at Bonn (2002-3) and Jena Universities (2000-2). I also worked regularly as a guest lecturer at UIMP in Madrid, City University London and Greewich University. In 1999 I was an assistant teacher for German at the Icelandic High School Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík.

Education: I have a PhD in Phonetics and Communication Sciences from Bonn University (with Wolfgang Hess and Petra Wagner) for which I studied the relationships between speech rate and speech rhythm. I have an MA in Phonetics and Linguistics from Trier University focussing on Forensic Phonetics (native language influences on speaker identification abilities by naive listeners). During my studies I spent a year in Santiago de Compostela/Spain (1995) studying the phonetics of Galician, a year at Edinburgh University (1996/97) studying phonetics, digital signal processing and Scottish Gaelic, and I was a guest student in the Phonetics Department at Saarbrücken University (1998).

Memberships

Acoustical Society of America

Center for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics

Center for Information Technology, Society, and Law

Center for Reproducible Science

International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics

International Speech Communication Association

Zurich Center of Linguistics (Vice-president & Board Member)