New Tools and Methods for Very-Large-Scale Phonetics Research

The University of Pennsylvania is hosting a workshop (Jan. 28-31, 2011) on new tools and methods for Very-Large-Scale phonetics research, as part of a newly awarded NSF grant. According to their website, "The themes of the workshop include: integration of speech technology in phonetics studies (including 
software to facilitate teaching and research); variation and invariance in large speech corpora; and revisiting classic phonetic and phonological problems from the perspective of corpus phonetics. A tutorial on forced alignment and the Penn Phonetics Lab Forced Aligner will also be provided prior to the workshop. Selected papers from the workshop will be published in a special issue of The Journal of Experimental Linguistics." Participants include IS regulars Elliot Saltzman, Mark Tiede and Louis Goldstein.

Catherine P. Browman

We are very sad to report the death of our colleague and friend, Catherine P. Browman (1945-2008). Cathe died peacefully at home on July 18, 2008, after a long illness. Her partner, Louis Goldstein, posted an obituary on the Linguist List.

Cathe, one of the pioneers in the field of Laboratory Phonology, is best known for her work with Goldstein and other colleagues at Haskins Laboratories on Articulatory Phonology. She was an early participant in IS group meetings. One memorable evening in the 1980s she led us in Sufi dances that spoke to her commitment to spirituality and group interaction.