People

Faculty

Kathryn Franich

Research Interests: phonetics, phonology, prosody, tone, experimental methods, fieldwork, African languagesPrincipal InvestigatorAssistant Professor of Linguisticskfranich@fas.harvard.edu

Affiliated Faculty

Kevin Ryan

Research Interests: Phonology; prosody; metrics; quantitative methodsProfessor of Linguisticskevinryan@fas.harvard.edu

Postdoctoral Fellow

Karee Garvin

Research Interests: Phonetics, phonology, articulation, gesture, and West African languagesPostdoctoral Fellowkareegarvin@fas.harvard.edu

Lab Manager

Eliana Spradling

Research Interests: phonetics, phonology, prosody, bilingualism, speech-intelligibilityLab Manager & Research Assistantelianaspradling@fas.harvard.edu

Graduate Students

Anabelle Caso

Research Interests: syntax, morphology, historical linguistics, Indo-Iranian linguistics, Polynesian linguistics, syntax-prosody interfaceSecond year PhD studentacaso@fas.harvard.edu

Jian Cui

Research Interests: theoretical phonology, language acquisition, cross-linguistic phonological universals, vowel harmony, tonologySecond year PhD studentjiancui@g.harvard.edu

Jacob Kodner

Research interests: Syntax, syntax-prosody interface, morphology, fieldwork, endangered languagesFirst year PhD studentjkodner@g.harvard.edu

Aljoša Milenković

Research interests: prosodic theory, particularly tone, stress and prosodic weight in natural languageThird year PhD studentaljosamilenkovic@g.harvard.edu

Xiaotian (Alice) Wang

Research interests: phonetics, laboratory phonology, sound change, and language contactFirst year PhD studentxiaotianwang@g.harvard.edu

Yuxuan (Melody) Wang

Research Interests: phonology, prosody, phonetics, philosophy of languageSecond year PhD studentyuxuan_wang@fas.harvard.edu

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Aaron Arlanza

Research Interests: semantics, pragmatics, phonology, sociolinguisticsHarvard College class of 2026aaronarlanza@college.harvard.edu

Clarissa Briasco-Stewart

Research Interests: phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and historical linguisticsHarvard College class of 2024cbriascostewart@college.harvard.edu

Luc De Nardi

Research Interests: phonetics, phonology, prosody, co-speech gesture  University of Delaware class of 2025lucfldn@udel.edu

Sam Lyczkowski

Research interests: historical linguistics, morphology, sociolinguistics, and phonologyHarvard College class of 2026samlyczkowski@college.harvard.edu

Jordan Mitchell

Research Interests: phonology, sociolinguistics, multilingualism, L2 language acquisition, typologyHarvard College class of 2025jordan_mitchell@college.harvard.edu

Annie Raschella

Research interests: phonetics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition, and sign languagesHarvard College class of 2026arraschella@college.harvard.edu

Mariela Rodriguez

Research interests: endangered languages, language acquisition, phonologyHarvard College class of 2026marielarodriguez@college.harvard.edu

Lexi Williams

Research interests: phonetics, language change, American Indigenous language reconstruction, sociolinguistics.Undergraduate Research Assistantlexiwilliams@college.harvard.edu

Affiliate Graduate Students

Fridah Gam À Belek

Research Interests: phonetics and phonology, tone and intonation,  Rɨkpa’ language (Bantu).MA student at the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon)gamfridah15@gmail.com

Anqi Hu

Research Interests: child language acquisition, atypical speech and language development, second language acquisitionPhD student at the University of Delawareanqihu@udel.edu

Vincent Nwosu

Research Interests: phonetics, phonology, prosodic typologies, documentation of endangered African languages PhD student at the University of Delawarevnwosu@udel.edu

Nicole Taylor

Research Interests: phonetics, phonology, and language acquisitionMA student at the University of Delawarengtaylor@udel.edu

Collaborators on Global Projects

Pius Akumbu

Dr. Akumbu is a linguist working on phonetics and phonology of Grassfields languages, including his native language, Kejom (Babanki). Dr. Akumbu is Director of Research (DR2) in African Linguistics at the LLACAN laboratory at CNRS in Paris. He is collaborating with the lab on studying speech and co-speech gesture in Kejom.  pius.akumbu@cnrs.fr

Hermann Keupdjio

Dr. Keupdjio works on syntax and its interfaces with semantics and phonology, and is a native speaker of the Medʉmba language. He graduated with a PhD from the University of British Columbia in 2020, with a dissertation entitled The syntax of A′-dependencies in Bamileke Medumba.  He currently teaches at Brescia College at Western University inhkeupdijo@uwo.ca

Ange Bergson Lendja Ngnemzué 

Dr. Lendja is a philosopher and political scientist and a native speaker of the Medʉmba language. He works with the PhonLab on aspects of Cameroonian languages and culture, helping to facilitate work with the Lafeng community of Medʉmba speakers in the west region of Cameroon. A primary focus of his research is on undocumented immigration,ablendja@yahoo.fr

Ariane Ngabeu

Dr. Ngabeu an Assistant Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Howard University in Washington D.C., and also a native speaker of the Medʉmba language. She previously worked for ten years as the director of the Middlebury College C.V. Starr study abroad program in Cameroon. Her research focus is in Francophone literatureangabeu@gmail.com

Lab Alumni

Vitor Lacerda Siqueira

Research Interests: phonetics, phonology, bilingualism, and historical linguisticsvlacerdasiqueira@g.harvard.edu

Walter Dych

Research Interests: phonetics, phonology, computational linguistics, language documentation and revitalization, historical linguisticswdych@udel.edu