Bob McMurray
Dr. Bob McMurray is one of the Principal Investigators of the Language Across the Lifespan project, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences with appointments in Linguistics, Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program, and the director of the MACLab (Mechanisms of Audio-visual Categorization Lab) at the University of Iowa. He’s taught at the University of Iowa since 2004. His research examines language and hearing from school age children through older adults, in a variety of different populations. He is currently the reigning champion in the MACLab at Speech Synthesis and Pivot Tables in Excel.
Email: bob-mcmurray@uiowa.edu
Dr. Sarah Colby is one of the Principal Investigators of the Language Across the Lifespan project and a postdoctoral research scholar in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa. Originally from southern Ontario, she completed her PhD in Communication Sciences and Disorders at McGill University in Montreal. She is interested in how cognitive and sensory factors interact to influence language processing, with a focus on aging and hearing loss. Her research interests also include investigating how language abilities can support psychosocial well-being.
Email: sarah-colby@uiowa.edu
Dr. Ethan Kutlu is an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics and Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. He is also the director of the VoiceLab (Variability Of Identity through Context and Experience Lab) at the University of Iowa. His work is grounded in the perceptual and social experiences of linguistically diverse individuals and their underlying neural and behavioral mechanisms. He is particularly interested in how speech perception is shaped by ecological factors (attitudes towards linguistic diversity in a specific location), personal social network diversity (experience with linguistic diversity), and individual differences (language exposure).
Email: ethan-kutlu@uiowa.edu
Sam Knight is a staff research assistant on the project. They completed their BA in Linguistics at the University of Minnesota and their MS in Linguistics at Georgetown University. The integration of contextual information and the interactions between linguistic representations and real-time processing mechanisms are among the many facets of language that fascinate them. In addition to their adventures studying language, they also enjoy practicing martial arts and writing interactive fiction.
Email: sam-knight@uiowa.edu
Hannah Franke is an undergraduate research assistant on the project; she greatly enjoys her work brainstorming design ideas with the team and developing stimuli, and she is also involved in other projects with the MACLab at the University of Iowa. Hannah is a third-year undergraduate student studying psychology and linguistics, with special interests in pragmatics, discourse analysis, and social psychology. She loves eating pastries, soaking up sunshine, and spending time with her loved ones!
Email: hannah-franke@uiowa.edu