Ja Young Choi Receives ASHFoundation Grant!
Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Ja Young Choi has been awarded a 2026 New Investigators Research Grant from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation for her project “Auditory-perceptual contributions to monopitch speech in Parkinson’s disease.” The New Investigators Research Grant is designed to help further new investigators’ research activities by funding one-year preliminary studies that could lead to larger-scale […]
Jenny Vojtech Receives ASHFoundation Grant!
Associate lab director Dr. Jenny Vojtech has been awarded a 2026 New Century Scholars Research Grant (NCSRG) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation for her project “Barriers to Speech Therapy Utilization in Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease: Identifying Opportunities for Improved Care.” The NCSRG is designed to advance knowledge, tools, and techniques in communication sciences and disorders […]
Daphne Toglia Receives an F31 Grant!
Doctoral candidate Daphne Toglia has received an F31 grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders! This project, titled “Longitudinal examination of subsystem-specific decline in speech motor control and functional communication in Parkinson’s disease,” seeks to identify the motor control mechanisms driving speech deterioration in Parkinson’s disease (PD) through direct measurement of speech […]
Anna Fritz Presents Summer Work
Anna Fritz, a visiting student part of BU’s SPIN program, presented her summer project this week! Anna’s project investigated the effect of typical and clear speech instruction on the movement of the vocal folds in speakers with Parkinson’s disease. Congratulations, Anna, and thanks for joining us this summer!
Andrew Wrede Presents Summer Research @ UROP Symposium
Tomorrow, October 18th, undergraduate student Andrew Wrede will be presenting the research he completed with the Stepp Lab this past summer during UROP’s Undergraduate Research Symposium from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM! Andrew’s poster is titled “Investigating Laryngeal and Acoustic Behaviors in AdLD.” The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) provides funding for undergraduate students conducting […]
Allison Aaron Receives an F31 Grant!
Allison Aaron, MS, CCC-SLP, has received an F31 grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. This project, titled “The Lombard effect in muscle tension dysphonia: Mechanistic and clinical characterization,” seeks to investigate voice changes associated with speaking in challenging acoustic environments to better inform clinical care for individuals with voice disorders. This project […]
The Stepp Lab Moved!
Big news! The Stepp Lab has officially moved locations! Our new address is: 111 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA, 02215 We’re so happy to be in our new space and can’t wait for everyone to see it!
VHCRC Meetings Open to Public!
The Vocal Hyperfunction Clinical Research Center at MGH – an NIH-funded, comprehensive, multi-institutional research program that brings together an interdisciplinary team of investigators to study vocal hyperfunction voice disorders – is opening up their monthly research seminars to the public via Zoom! These monthly seminars include updates on projects being done in the VHCRC as […]
Nicole Tomassi Receives Raymond H. Stetson Scholarship!
Nicole Tomassi, one of the Stepp Lab’s doctoral candidates, received the Raymond H. Stetson Scholarship in Phonetics and Speech Science from the Acoustical Society of America. The grant honors Professor Raymond H. Stetson, a pioneer investigator in phonetics and speech science. The $30,000 scholarship is awarded to 1-2 promising graduate students each year in order […]