My work focuses on the fine phonetic detail of spoken interaction between humans and computers with the aim of making this information usable for the further development of voice-activated digital assistants. In particular, I am researching accommodation phenomena and the perception of natural and synthetic voices by human users of such assistants. I have also gained expertise in the field of explainable artifcial intelligence (AI) by analyzing speech embeddings generated by state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition (ASR) models for phonetic information.
I taught topics such as phonetics, speech science, and user-centered design at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
In the course of my education as a phonetician, I was engaged in various fields of application. Having a background in Romance studies (French and Portuguese), I started with the phonetics of foreign language learning, continued in the area of forensic phonetics, and then moved towards human-computer interaction (HCI).
I am a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Christoph Gabriel in the third-party funded research project Judeo-Spanish in Bulgaria: a contact language between archaism and innovation, where we investigate the intonational phonology of Judeo‑Spanish varieties spoken in Bulgaria.
Akademische Laufbahn
- since 2025
- Postdoctoral Researcher, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
Romanisches Seminar
Project: Judeo-Spanish in Bulgaria: a contact language between archaism and innovation, funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
- 2022-2025
- Postdoctoral Researcher, University College Dublin, Ireland
Affiliated with the ADAPT Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology - 2023-2025: School of Computer Science, Berndsen lab
- 2022-2023: School of Information and Communication Studies, HCI@UCD group
- 2016-2022
- Research Associate, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
Department of Language Science and Technology, Phonetics group
Project: CHIC – Phonetic Convergence in Human-Computer Interaction, funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
- 2016-2022
- Doctor of Philosophy: Phonetics, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
Thesis topic: phonetic accommodation of humans communicating with a spoken dialogue system
- 2015-2016
- Research Associate, Forschungszentrum Deutscher Sprachatlas, Marburg, Germany
Project: regionalsprache.de (REDE), fundend by Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz
- 2014-2015
- Teaching Associate, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil
Joint scholarship program of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES).
- 2012-2014
- Master of Arts: Speech Science – Phonetics, University of Marburg, Germany
Thesis topic: foreign accent imitation and intelligibility in a forensic context
- 2010-2011
- Foreign Language Assistant, Lycée Ronsard, Vendôme, France
Scholarship program of the PAD (Pädagogischer Austauschdienst) on behalf of the Ministers of Education and Culture of the Federal States, Germany.
- 2008-2012
- Bachelor of Arts: Romance Languages, Speech Science & Phonetics, University of Jena, Germany
Thesis topic: authenticity of French pronunciation in native speakers of German