Alumni

Elise Rickert, AuD

Elise completed her AuD at UT Austin in May 2025, and is completing a project on development of speech in noise processing in the brain.

Diego Mac-Auliffe, M.D., Ph.D.

Diego's research focused on closed-loop BCI systems and high-level cognitive neuroscience using invasive EEG. He completed his PhD in France on multitasking and attention and is a postdoc in ECE, Moody College, and Neurology. Diego was jointly supervised by Dr. Jose Millan at UT Austin, and now is working with Dr. Lori Holt in the Department of Psychology at UT Austin. He continues to collaborate with the lab.

Yao Chen, PhD

Yao completed a PhD rotation in the lab, analyzing iEEG during speech errors and exploring non-native speech perception.

Giselle Pedraza

Giselle is a Music and Neuroscience major exploring auditory cognition and sound processing, with a love for piano, music, and dancing.

Anisha Cheena Sait

Anisha is a Neuroscience and Sociology major interested in speech processing, neurodegeneration, and computational approaches to the brain.

Indrani Basu

Indrani is a triple major in WGS, Neuroscience, and Plan II. She enjoys yoga, ceramics, and UT Microfarm and plans to study pediatric neurology.

Amara Vincent-Nsobundu

Amara is a Public Health major with interests in language processing and data science. She also enjoys reading and applied statistics.

Fouad Tawil

Fouad is a Computational Biology major focused on speech, language, and neural modeling. He also leads a nonprofit and enjoys paddle boarding.

Erica McVey, AuD

Erica completed her AuD capstone project on EEG speech-in-noise encoding in ASL interpreters, linking auditory and cross-modal plasticity.

Arpan Patel, MD

Arpan completed his master's thesis in the lab on speech decoding models.

Lauren Hilder

Lauren is a UT Austin undergraduate in Medical Sciences who worked as a summer intern with our collaborators at TCH and as a research student at UT Austin.

Alyssa Field, M.Ed.

Alyssa managed sEEG neuroimaging and lab operations. She holds degrees in Linguistics and Secondary Education, with interests in digital humanities and sociolinguistics. Current position: Community Outreach Coordinator at UT Health San Antonio.

Maansi Desai, Ph.D.

Maansi studies auditory attention and naturalistic speech encoding using EEG and iEEG. She completed her PhD at UT Austin and is now a part-time postdoc in the lab. Current position: Clinical Research Scientist at Paradromics, Inc.

G. Lynn Kurteff, Ph.D.

Lynn investigates self-generated versus external auditory feedback using EEG and sEEG. Their research also explores error detection and correction systems in the brain. Current position: Postdoc in Dr. Gregory Hickok's lab at UC Irvine.

Aneri Shah

As a part of this lab, Aneri learned to run EEG data collection sessions with adult participants and gained a deeper understanding of the EEG methodology and preprocessing.

Lydia Su

Completed her AuD research capstone on speech in noise difficulties using audiometry, ABR, and EEG.

Gabby Foox

Research Coordinator at Texas Children's Hospital. Now at Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (2024).

Therese Ancheta

Shadowed at Texas Children's Hospital during Summer 2023.

Alex Foox

Shadowed at Texas Children's Hospital in Summer 2023. Now an undergraduate at UT Austin.

Saman Asghar

Contributed to pediatric data collection at Texas Children’s Hospital. Now pursuing a DO at UIW School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Malinda Mullet

Worked on sEEG data preprocessing (2021–2023). Now in AuD externship at Carle ECHO/CAOS.

Katherine Huang

Created pediatric-friendly research materials in Fall 2022.

Beth Oldenburg

Assisted EEG data collection using movie trailers (Fall 2022). Plans to pursue a Master of Communication Disorders.

Anokhi Shah

Assisted EEG data collection using movie trailers (Fall 2022). Graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience and minor in Journalism.

Jacob Cheek

Worked on virtual classroom fatigue measures (2021–2023). Currently in AuD externship at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison, WI.

Donise Tran

Undergrad researcher (2019–2020). Now in graduate school for SLP. Interested in Deaf community speech education.

Sahar Hashemgeloogerdi, Ph.D.

Ph.D. in ECE from University of Rochester. Studied BCI and acoustic signal processing in Hamilton Lab.

Tasha Anslyn

Undergrad researcher on EEG of speech production/perception. Interested in linguistics and speech disorders.

Amanda Martinez

CSD graduate (2021). Interested in brain and language processing in children and adults. Plans to become an SLP.

Chris Truong

Assisted with EEG project on speech perception vs. production.

Claire Huber

Completed undergraduate studies in Linguistics and Computer Science (2019). Worked on speech perception/production project.

Valerie Rae Mercado

Graduated with BA in English, Linguistics, and Japanese. Now a tutor and linguistics grad school hopeful.

Brittany Hoang

SLHS graduate (2021). Now working as an SLPA and planning to pursue graduate studies in SLP.

Nicole Currens

Undergrad researcher (2019–2020). Worked on EEG for naturalistic speech. Majored in Linguistics and CS.

Nick Arreguy

Independent study on EEG artifact rejection using ICA (Spring 2020).

Rachel Sorrells

Independent research through UT Neuroscience and Moody IE Program (2019–2020).

Jade Holder

Undergrad researcher (2018–2020). Started Master's in Communication Disorders at UT Dallas (Fall 2020).

Ian Griffith

Research Assistant (2018–2020). Worked on neural networks for pitch and phonology. Now a PhD student at Harvard/MIT.

Paranjaya Pokharel

Undergrad research volunteer (Summer–Fall 2019).

Natalie Miller

Summer 2019 volunteer. Now pursuing a PhD in Musicology at Princeton.

Greta Lowery, MA, CCC-SLP

Masters student (2017–2019). Studied simultaneous speech and music perception via EEG. Now a pediatric SLP, entering PhD program in 2024.

Cassandra Villarreal

Undergrad volunteer (2018–2019). Now in graduate school at University of Washington for Medical SLP.

Nat Clark

Undergrad volunteer (2018–2019). Graduated from CSD at UT Austin, now in MS-SLP program at TWU.

Stephanie Shields

Rotation student (2019). Now in the Alex Huk Lab (UT Neuroscience).

Noora Raad

Research volunteer (2017–2018).

Shun Kobayashi

Rotation student (2018). Now in the Eyal Seidemann Lab (UT Center for Perceptual Systems).