Emma Zaal
Role: PhD student member (chair)
Interests:
About: Emma is a member of the Discourse and Communication group, Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen. Emma is currently working on her PhD-project, in which she investigates how socially desirable responding can be reduced in online survey research. She also teaches courses and supervises bachelor theses in the study program Communication and Information Sciences. Before her PhD, Emma worked as research-assistant at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, where she investigated the societal impact of the work-based learning Master track Science, Business and Policy.
Inge Salomons
Role: PhD student member (finances and website)
Interests: Phonetics; Speech Technology; Computational Linguistics
About: Inge is a visiting PhD student from Spain. The topic of her PhD is electromyography-based silent speech recognition. In other words, she is researching the potential of predicting speech from muscle movements in the face and neck using machine learning techniques. In Groningen, she is focusing on the relationship between individual muscles and speech production.
Katharina Polsterer
Role: PhD student member (program and facilities)
Interests: Phonetics; Speech disorders; Neurolinguistics
About: Katharina's PhD research focuses on the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying speech production, and how they change in neurodegenerative diseases compared to typical aging.
Rebecca Pitt
Role: PhD student member (contact and social media)
Interests: Syntax; Modality; Language change
About: Rebecca is a first year PhD candidate (theoretical linguistics) with the University of Groningen and Stellenbosch University. Her research looks at the modal verb must in South African English (an English variety embedded in a complex language contact situation), that exhibits distinctive morphosyntactic behavior from canonical English must. She aims to give a formal analysis of what the semantic-syntactic properties of must are for this variety, and its consequences within the broader modality system.
Sofie van der Meij
Role: PhD student member (program and facilities)
Interests: Linguistic ethnography; Discourse; Classroom interaction
About: Sofie is a first year PhD student working on the stimulation of oral language skills in lower primary education.
Defne Abur
Role: Senior staff member
Interests: Phonetics; Speech disorders; Neural control of speech
About: Defne is an assistant professor of Speech & Speech Technology in the Computational Linguistics department and she is affiliated with the Research School for Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences. Her research investigates sensory and motor control of speech in aging and neurological disorders.
Merel Lobo
Role: Coordinator of the CLCG
Interests: Interdisciplinary linguistics; Linguistic anthropology; Minorities; Migration research
About: Merel is a linguist who previously worked the influence of standard language ideology on the socioemotional and linguistic acculturation of migrants