People

Lab Director

YZ.jpg The Lab Director, Yang Zhang, is a full professor with tenure in the Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences and the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, and an affiliated professor with the Center for Applied Translational Sensory Science, University of Minnesota. Zhang obtained his PhD in Speech & Hearing Sciences from University of Washington, Seattle (Committee members: Patricia Kuhl; Toshiaki Imada; David Corina; Lee Osterhout; Margaret Rogers) and did postdoctoral research at the Institute of Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS), University of Washington. He also received brain imaging training (1999 ~ 2001) at the Communication Science Laboratories and Basic Research Laboratories of Nippon Telephone & Telegraph Corporation in Japan. During his postdoctoral training, Zhang worked with world-leading scientists at Hitachi Medical Systems, BioMag Laboratory (Helsinki), and Eleka Neuromag (including Dr. Samu Taulu, current director of the I-LABS MEG Brain Imaging Center) on infant MEG and Optical Topography (also known as fNIRS) projects. Zhang conducts an active research program on the neural basis of speech communication and language acquisition with collaborators home and abroad.
Yang Zhang

Visiting Scholars

xiaojuan_zhang.jpg Xiaojuan Zhang (PhD) completed her PhD program at Xi'an Jiaotong University and is now a faculty ("Talented Young Scholar") at the School of Foreign Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong University. She visited Zhang Lab in 2021-2022 to complete her dissertation project on "Understanding and modeling lawful variability in speech: Cue-to-category mapping of Mandarin contour tones". Xiaojuan and her PhD advisor, Prof. Bing Cheng, received funding from the Social Sciences Foundation of China to collaborate with Zhang Lab on speech perception studies.
Xiaojuan Zhang
Fei_Chen.jpg Fei Chen (PhD) received the M.S. degree in linguistics from Nankai University, Tianjin, China. He completed his Ph.D. program at the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His Ph.D. project is on 'Speech sound perception and production in tone language speaking children with autism spectrum disorders'. He is now a professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University. He visited Zhang Lab from September 2019 to March 2020 and continues active collaboration. His current research interests include psycholinguistics, language acquisition, and pathological linguistics.
Fei Chen

PhD/AuD

Chieh.jpg Chieh Kao (PhD): Chieh received her bachelor degree in Psychology at National Taiwan University. She completed her PhD program in speech-language-hearing sciences in August 2021, and is currently enrolled in the clinical AuD program. She had research experiences with infants, children with cochlear implants, and children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, focusing on their emotional and tonal speech perception. She is interested in how preschoolers process speech sounds under complex situations, and the neural network underlying that processing.
Chieh Kao

Undergraduate Research Assistants

2023 CLA DRAFCS Award Recipients

  • Dahabo Mohamed
  • Zoya Hassan

2022 CLA DRAFCS Award Recipients

  • Serena French
  • Akshara Molleti
  • Munira Ahmed

2021 UROP & Dean's First Year Research Award Recipients

  • Irena Wilson
  • Grace Baudhuin

Alumni

Former PhD advisees:

  • 2018 Luodi Yu, PhD, Luodi Yu, faculty at South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.

Dissertation: Yu, Luodi. (2018). An Electrophysiological Investigation of Linguistic Pitch Processing in Tonal-language-speaking Children with Autism. Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, http://hdl.handle.net/11299/201141.

  • 2017 Tess Koerner, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research, VA Portland.

Dissertation: Koerner, Tess K. (2017). Behavioral and Electrophysiological Measures of Speech-in-Noise Perception in Normal Hearing and Hearing Impaired Adults. Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, http://hdl.handle.net/11299/190393.

  • 2015 Sharon Miller, PhD, faculty at University of North Texas.

Miller Dissertation: Neural Correlates of Phonetic Learning in Adult Listeners with Cochlear Implants

Stevens Dissertation: Control and disposal of demonstratives, with electrophysiological evidence from English and Japanese

Former visiting scholars/students:
2017 Visiting scholar: Dr. Min Guo is a medical doctor and the Director of the Psychological Education and Training Department at the university hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu, Si Chuan Province. She is visiting Zhang Lab from August 2017 to August 2018. Her primary interests are developmental neurbehavioral disorders including autism and ADHD.
2016 Visiting scholar: Xueping Xu, (PhD, Professor), comes from South China Normal University in Guangzhou City, China. His research interests are cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, language acquisition and teaching. He has published many research papers in Chinese and English, and his monograph book in English entitled “An Experimental Pragmatic Study of Spatial Demonstratives” was published by China Social Sciences Press in 2011 in Beijing. He is currently doing a project with Dr. Zhang on the use of spatial demonstratives in social communication.
  • 2014-2015 Xiaohu Yang, PhD, Associate Professor, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China.
  • 2013-2014 Bing Cheng, PhD, Associate Professor, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China.
  • 2015 Xiaoyue Wang, MA student, South China Normal University.
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