Janet Breckenridge Pierrehumbert 

April, 2022

ADDRESS

Oxford e-Research Centre

Dept. of Engineering Science

7 Keble Road
University of Oxford

OX1 3QG, United Kingdom

Phone +44(0) 1865610617

Home Page: http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/jpierrehumbert/

EDUCATION

• Ph.D., Linguistics,  MIT, 1980. Minor field: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. 
• Rotary Graduate Fellow 1975 – 1976, University of Turku.
• A.B, Linguistics, Harvard University 1975. Summa cum laude. Phi Beta Kappa.  Minor field: Mathematics.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• Professor of Language Modelling, Oxford e-Research Centre,  University of Oxford 5/2015 --
• Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College, University of Oxford 10/2015--
• Associate Member, Oxford Man Institute of Quantitave Finance, University of Oxford, 2021--
• Associate Faculty Member, Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford. 5/2015 --
• Adjunct Professor, New Zealand Institute of Language Brain and Behaviour, University of Canterbury, 2012 –

 

Previous appointments:

• Adjunct Professor, Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 2015--2019.
• Professor, Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 1993—2015; Director of Graduate Studies, 2004--2014.
• Professor by Courtesy, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, 12/2002—2015.
• Faculty, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, 2013.
• Wender-Lewis Research and Teaching Professor, Northwestern, 2005-2008.
• Faculty, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, June-July 2005.
• Visiting scholar, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, École Normale Supérieure and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 2003-2004.
• Poste Rouge, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1/97--3/97.
• Visitor, École Nationale Superieure des Télécommunications, Paris, 1996-7.
• Faculty, LOT (Dutch post-graduate school of linguistics), University of Nijmegen, 1/97.
• Astor Visiting Lecturer, Oxford University, 1995.
•  Chair, Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 1993-1997.
• Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 1989-1993.
• Faculty, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, 1993.
• Member of Technical Staff, Dept. of Linguistics and Artificial  Intelligience Research,  AT&T Bell Laboratories, 1982-89.
• Visitor, Dept. of Speech Transmission and Music Acoustics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 1987-88.
• Faculty, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, 1986.
• Consulting Assistant Professor, Dept. of Linguistics, Stanford Univ., 1984-85.
• Research Associate, Center for Cognitive Science, MIT, 1980-82.
• Consultant, Dept. of Linguistics and Speech Analysis, AT&T Bell Labs, 1980-82.

 

ACADEMIC AWARDS AND HONORS

• Medal for Scientific Achievement, ISCA (International Speech Communication Association) (2020).
• Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2019).
• Edward Sapir Professor, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute 2013 (Ann Arbor, Michigan).
• Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society ( 2013).
• Fellow of the Linguistic Society of American (2012).
• Erskine Fellowship, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, June-August 2010.
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004).
• Erskine Fellowship, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, June-August 2003.
• Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1996..

 

RESEARCH SUPPORT

• Pierrehumbert (PI) and Xiowen Dong (co-I). Exaggeration, cohesion, and fragmentation in on-line forums. EPSRC program on Responsible Natural Language Processing for Intelligent Interfaces. 10/2020 - 9/2023. £ 604,763 ($840,000). .
• Pierrehumbert (PI) and J. Hay (co-PI). Creativity and Cooperation in the Dynamics of the Lexicon: from Lexis to Logos. John Templeton Foundation. 12/1/2012 - 11/30/2015. $2,734,477.  Also known as “The Wordovators Project”.
• Pierrehumbert (co-PI), N. Morgan (PI, International Computer Science Institute), D. Ellis (co-PI, Columbia Univ.) E. Fosler-Lussier (co-PI, Ohio State Univ.) M. Ostendorf (co-PI, Univ. of Washington).  Spoken Wordsearch with Rapid Development and Frugal Invariant Subword Hierarchies. IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency). Northwestern baseline period and Option period 1 subcontracts: $418,636. 3/4/2012 - 7/4, 2014.
• Pierrehumbert (PI) Horton (coPI, Psych), Katsaggelos (coPI, EECS), Wu (coPI, EECS). Audio-visual databases and architectures for improving recognition of reduced wordforms, Motorola Corporation, 9/2007-8/2010, $180,000.
• Pierrehumbert (PI) and M. West (co-PI, Tiz Media Foundation), Speech and the Cell Phone: An Experiential Learning Project. Innovation Generation Program, Motorola Foundation, $49,791.00, 10/2007-12/2008.
• Perception and Representation of Dialect Variation. NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Service Award, 7/1/05 -- 6/30/06 (Sponsor for individual post-doc to Cynthia Clopper. Joint with Ann Bradlow).
• Pierrehumbert (PI) Dynamics and Metastability in Phonological Grammar, James S. McDonnell Foundation, $244,206, 1/2003--12/2008.
• Pierrehumbert (PI) Phonetic Foundations of Scansion. John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, $29,000. 1996-7.
• Pierrehumbert (PI) Experimental and Computational Studies of Word Phonology, NSF Faculty Awards for Women Scientists and Engineers, Grant No. BNS-9022484, $250,000, 1991-1996.
• Pierrehumbert (PI) Intonation and Voice Source Characteristics,” NSF US-Sweden Cooperative Science Program, Grant No. INT-8712375, $9,250, 1988.
• Pierrehumbert (PI) The Use of Intonation in Automatic Speech Understanding, NSF Information Science and Technology Program, Grant No. IST-8012248, $50,000, 1980-82.

SERVICE

University of Oxford:

• Member of the Governing Body, Trinity College, University of Oxford, 2018—
• Member of the Management Team, Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford, 2015 -- —
• Advisory Board, International Multimodal Communication Centre (IMCC) , University of Oxford, 2019 --
• Head of Diversity and Equality, University of Oxford Dept of Engineering Science, 2018 -- 19/10/2022

 

External:

• Editorial Board, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 3/2022 -- -
• Atkinson Prize selection committee, National Academy of Sciences, 2021.
• Editorial Board, Open Mind, 2016--
• Spinoza Selection Committee, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, 2015-2018.
• Advisory committee,  NWAV 43 (New Ways of Analyzing Variation 43). University of Illinois at Chicago, 2014.
• Founding member, Association for Laboratory Phonology (professional association incorporated in 2010).
• Co-organizer,  Illinois Speech Day. 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 (with UIUC and Toyota  Technological Institute).
• Co-organizer,  Speech Prosody 2010. (Chicago, May 2010; with UIUC Beckman Institute and Toyota Technological Institute).
• External Advisory Board, Beckman Institute, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009 –.
• Editorial Board, LiLT (Linguistic Issues in Language Technology) 2007—2014.
• Associate Editor,  Language, 2003-2005.
• Steering Committee, Laboratory Phonology Conference Series, 1996--; Chair, 2003-04.
• Advisory Editor, Oxford Surveys in Generative Phonology. 2000--.
• Member of the Board of Experts, Phonetics Chair, University of Stockholm, 1999.
• Co-organizer, Fifth Conference on Laboratory Phonology.  Northwestern Univ. July 1997.
• Program Review Committee, UCLA Dept. of Linguistics, Jan. 1993.
• Associate/Advisory Editor,  J. of Phonetics, 1989 – 2011.    
• Executive Board, The ACL-MIT Press Series in Natural  Language Processing, 1989-91.
• Editorial Board,  Computational Linguistics, 1986-1988.

 

Northwestern University.

• Director, Language and Cognition Program, 2009—2014.
• Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Linguistics, 1999 and 2004—2014.
• Linguistics Representative to the Faculty Senate, , 2011—2014.
• Executive Committee, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, 2005--2011.
• Steering Committee, Mathematics Excellence . (MENU), 2006—2010.
• Personnel Committee, Mathematics Department, . 2006--2008, 2009—2014.
• Internal Reviewer, Department of Philosophy Program Review, 2004.
• British Fellowships Committee 2002 -- 2004.
• Panelist, Northwestern University Internal Review Board, 2001-03.
• Chair, Department of Linguistics,1993-1996.
• University Research Grants Committee, 1990-1994.

PUBLICATIONS: See my publications page or my Google Scholar Page :

KEYNOTE ADDRESSES and LECTURE SERIES :

• Using orthographic data to explore the mental lexicon. Morphology in Perception and Production, Feb. 2022..
• Linguistic Behaviour and the Realistic Testing of NLP Systems. Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) Nov. 2020.
• The cognitive status of simple and complex models. Interspeech Oct. 2020.
• Regular Sound Change through the Lens of Exemplar Theory, PaPE (Phonology and Phonetics in Europe), June 2019.
• Frequency and abstraction in learning of words and word-formation patterns, AMLaP 2015, Malta.
• Lexical Variability. Edward Sapir Lecture, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 2013.
• Example-based learning and the dynamics of the lexicon. Plenary address, Linguistic Society of America, Jan. 2011.
• Learning Mechanisms and Dialectal Differentiation. Production, Perception, and Attitude Symposium. Leuven, Apr. 2-3. 2009. .
• Sustaining Linguistic Complexity. Society for Language Development, Boston, Nov. 1, 2007. .
• Language Dynamics and Social Networks. NWAV, Columbus, OH, Nov. 11, 2006. .
• Phonological learning and phonological learnability. LingEvid2006, February 4, 2006. .
• Mergers and Near-Mergers, VarPhon (Variation and Change in Phonology and Phonetics), University of Potsdam, October 2004.
• Fréquence et Structure, Journées Internationales du Réseau Français de Phonologie, Orléans, June 2004.
• Sociocognitive models of language variation. University of Canterbury, New Zealand. June 2003-August 2003. (Lecture series).
• Community Phonology, 39th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, June 2003. (with Paul Gross). )
• Beyond Contrast and Ease. Conference on the Phonology/Phonetics Interface, Berlin, Oct. 2001.
• "#, ?, and +", 7th Conference in Laboratory Phonology, Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics/University of Nijmegen. July 2000. (Invited).
• What people know about sounds of language. Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, July 1999. (Plenary Forum Lecture).
• Interpreting 'phonetic interpretation' over the lexicon, 6th Conference in Laboratory Phonology, University of York (with Mary Beckman), July 1998. (Invited)
• Prosody and Grammar, Linguistic Society of Finland. August 1997.
• Post-modular ontology: phonetilogics versus phonetics, HILP3, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, January 1997.
• Jeux de mots et structure phonologique. Dépendence des traits distinctifs. Sur l'Intonation. Institute de Linguistique et Phonétique Générales et Appliquées, Paris. December 1996-April 1997. (Lecture series, )
• What's stress? Workshop on tone, stress, and intonation. University of Oxford, June 8, 1995.
• Astor Lecture Series, Oxford University, June 1995. (Lecture series).
• Knowledge of Variation, Parasession on Language Variation, 30th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, April 1994..
• Alignment and Prosodic Heads, Eastern States Conference on Linguistics, Ohio State University, August 1993.
• Prosodic Transcription and Why We Need it. NSF BBS funded conference. Prosodically Transcribed Data and Transcription Tools for Linguistics Research. Ohio State University, June 1993. .
• AI and the Sound Structure of Language, 6th National Congress on Artificial Intelligience, 1987. (with M. Y. Liberman). (Plenary address).
• The Form and Interpretation of English Intonation, 25th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Palo Alto, 1987. (Tutorial).

ADVISING

Postdoctoral Advisor (with most recent position).

• Peter Racz. (2013-2016) Postdoc on Wordovators Project. Co-advised with Jen Hay. Research Fellow, Central European University.
• Clayton Beckner (2013-2018) Postdoc on Wordovators Project.. Co-advised with Jen Hay. Assistant Professor, Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick.
• Eduardo Altmann (2008-2009).  Co-advised with Adilson Motter,  Northwestern Univ. Physics. Professor and Head of the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney., University of Sydney.
• Andrea Sims, Post-doc (2006-2008) Assoc. Prof. of Slavic, Ohio State Univ.
• Cynthia Clopper (2005-6).  Prof. of Linguistics and Assoc. Director, Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Ohio State University. Co-advised with Ann Bradlow.
• Katy Carlson (2001-2003) Prof. of English, Morehead State University.
• Fred Cummins (1997-8) Assoc. Prof. University College Dublin School of  Computer Science and Informatics.
• Kim Silverman (1986-87) Principal Research Scientist; Manager of Spoken Language Technologies, Apple Inc.
• Shirley Steele (1986) Independent new media artist.
• Mary E. Beckman (1984-85) Distinguished Professor Emerita of Linguistics, Ohio State University.

Ph.D/DPhil Supervisor:

• Felix Drinkall (in progress) Using social media in forecasting. .
• Valentin Hofmann (in progress) A computational approach to morphological dynamics.
• Paul Röttger (in progress) Adapting Pre-trained Contextual Language Models to Address Linguistic Challenges in Hate Speech Detection and Beyond .
• Samantha Gett Heidenreich (2019) The intonation of disjunctive and interrogative constructions. Independent Contractor at LionGate.
• Jeremy Needle (2018) Gradient typicality and indexical associations in morphology. Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Linguiistics, University of Toronto.
• R. Alexander Schumacher (2018) Prepositions and verbs in the syntax and the lexicon. Founder and Head of Data Science, Claira.
• Lisa Dawdy-Hesterberg (2014) The Structural and Statistical Basis of Morphological Generalization in Arabic. Senior Quantitative UX Researcher, Google.
• Kenneth Konopka (2011) Sociophonetic Exploration of Mexican-American Vowel Patterns. Lecturer, Northwestern University.
• Robert Daland (2009) Word segmentation, word recognition, and word learning: A computational model of first language acquisition. Apple Siri: Quality Engineer for Natural Language Understanding.
• James German (2008) Prosodic Strategies for Negotiating Reference in Discourse. Maitre de Conference (Assoc.Professor), Laboratoire Parole et Langage, CNRS & Aix Marseille University.
• Carolyn Gottfurcht-Zafra (2007) Denominal Verb Formation in English. Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
• John Evar Strid (2006) The Effect of Phonological Structure and Orthographic Depth on Visual Word Access. Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Northern Illinois Univ.
• Deborah Berkley (2000) Gradient OCP Effects. Retired International Project Engineer, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond Washington.
• Jen Hay (2000) Causes and Consequences of Word Structure. Prof. of Linguistics. University of Canterbury, Christchurch NZ. Founder and Director of the New Zealand Institute on Language, Brain, and Behavior..
• Rami Nair (1998) Syllables and Word Edges. Assoc. Professor of Instruction, Department of Asian Language and Cultures, Northwestern University
• Sarmad Hussain (1997) Phonetic Correlates of Lexical Stress in Urdu. Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Center for Language Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. (Co-advised with Bruce Smith.)
• Stefan Frisch (1996) Similarity and Frequency in Phonology. Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Appalachian State University.

Supervisor for MA/MSc/MEng:

• Alexander Goldie (in progress). Engineering Science, University of Oxford
• Mia Mijovic (in progress). Engineering Science, University of Oxford
• Manoj Abhishetty (2021). Investigating the spread of concepts related to COVID-19 among online communitie. Engineering Science, University of Oxford
• Felix Drinkall (2021) Forecasting Covid-19 caseloads from social media posts. Engineering Science, University of Oxford
• George Tall (2020) Using Word Embeddings to Analyze Amazon Product Reviews. Engineering Science, University of Oxford
• Abdulbasit Abdulrahman (2019) Ideological Drifts in the U.S. Constitution: Detecting Areas of Contention with Models of Semantic Change. Social Data Science, University of Oxford
• Benjamin Gittelson (2019) The Impact of Niche Size on Word Growth and Decline on Reddit. Social Data Science, University of Oxford.
• Karen Chu (2013) Investigating novel word blends using Games with a Purpose Linguistics, Northwestern University..
• Lisa Hesterberg (2012) Building a predictive model of the Arabic broken plural. Linguistics, Northwestern University.
• Charlotte Vaughn (2011) Native Language Classification in a Corpus of Transcribed Spoken English.Linguistics, Northwestern University.
• Tyler Perrachione (2007) A Linguistic Basis for the Language-Familiarity Effect in Talker Identification.Linguistics, Northwestern University.
• Deborah Gordon (2003) Influence of Russian L1 Palatalization Rules on Three Consonants in Azeri L2. Linguistics, Northwestern University.
• L.indsayHartmann (2002) Morphological Competition in Conjugation of Spanish Verbs. Linguistics. Linguistics, Northwestern University
• Cara Coburn (2000) Production and Perception of Focus Intonation. Linguistics, Northwestern University.
• Andrew Talle, (1995) The Impact of lexical tone on the realization of melody in Vietnamese poetry recitation. Linguistics and Music Cognition. Linguistics, Northwestern University
• Anne Bertram (1994) A Quantitative Study of Transitive Phrasal Verbs: Form, Function, and Word Order, Linguistics, Northwestern University
• Mark D. Anderson, (1984) Pitch Determination of Speech Signals, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT. (MIT-Bell Labs Coop Program).

Member of the Jury for for Ph.D or Habilitation a Diriger les Recherches (France)

• Marie-Lou Barnaud (2017) EDISCE Université Grenoble Alpes
• Albert Rilliard (2014) Laboratoire d'informatique pour la mécanique et les sciences de l'ingénieur (LIMSI)
• Rachide Ridouane 2003) Université de Paris III.
• Christophe d’Allesandro (1997)Laboratoire d'informatique pour la mécanique et les sciences de l'ingénieur (LIMSI) .

LANGUAGES:

French (excellent).

Finnish, Russian, German (reading).