Committee

Chair/webmaster: Caroline Williams

Caroline Williams is a PhD student at the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics, looking at using machine learning to identify criterial features in second language acquisition of English. Prior to that she worked as a research assistant looking at the effect of speaking rate and style in spoken French on prosodic structure, and then on the English Profile Project. Her undergraduate degree was in French, Spanish and Linguistics, also at the University of Cambridge. She spends most of her free time dancing with the Cambridge Dancers Club and the Cambridge Lindy Hoppers, and doing geeky things with websites and her linux box.

Treasurer: Katharine Barden (née Oakley)

Katharine Oakley completed her undergraduate degree in Linguistics in 2004, and an MPhil in Linguistics in 2006, both at Cambridge University. She is currently in the first year of a PhD in phonetics, investigating plasticity in speech perception by exploring how adult listeners perceptually adapt to unusual speech.

Accommodation/Events/Registration/Proceedings: Naomi Hilton

Naomi Hilton is currently a research assistant in the hearing lab in the Department of Experimental Psychology, looking at frequency selectivity, and at which harmonics dominate perception at low frequencies. Before this, she worked for a year as a research assistant in the phonetics lab in the Department of Linguistics, comparing fine phonetic detail in mono- and bimorphemic forms of homophones (e.g. mist-missed). She is a member of Cambridge Presbyterian Church, and in all the spare time that she doesn't have, she plays violin in the Cambridge Philharmonic orchestra and enjoys sewing, talking Austrian and learning Romanian.

Programme Manager: Bettina Beinhoff

Bettina Beinhoff is a PhD student at the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics (RCEAL). Her main research interest is in sociophonetics, specifically in the perception of - and attitudes towards - non-native speakers' accents of English in the context of globalisation and the use of English as a worlwide lingua franca. Bettina studied for her undergraduate degree at the Technische Universität Braunschweig in Germany and finished the MPhil in English and Applied Linguistics at RCEAL in June 2006. Whenever she is not studying Bettina can be found on the river, rowing for Trinity Hall Boat Club, learning Chinese, playing (very) early music or exercising her taste buds at the Cambridge University Blind Wine Tasting Society.

Technical Manager and Logistics: Toby Hudson

Toby is currently Research Assistant to the DyViS project (Dynamic Variability in Speech: A Forensic Phonetic Study of British English) in the Linguistics Department at Cambridge University. His interests are in phonetics and phonology in general, and his background is in Indo-European historical linguistics.

After studing for a BA in Classics and an MPhil in Philology he has heard the call of the Phonetics Lab and now enjoys getting people to say unlikely things into a microphone and marvels at what can be done with Praat. He belongs to City Church Cambridge and is rather fond of jazz, gospel, curry and coffee.