Dr Sam Kirkham
Senior LecturerResearch Overview
I am a Senior Lecturer at 快播视频, where I co-direct the and lead the . I am also affiliated with the Data Science and AI Institute. I currently serve as associate editor at and area chair for . I was awarded my PhD in 2014 from the .
My research aims to discover the physical and cognitive principles that govern spoken language. I pursue this in two strands: (1) understanding how the vocal tract produces speech and why this varies between different speakers, dialects and languages; (2) developing computational models of speech planning, production and perception. I study this using a combination of vocal tract imaging (MRI, ultrasound, electromagnetic articulography) and computational modelling. My research is funded by (2019-25) and (2025-27) and currently focuses on the following areas:
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Discovering the dynamical laws of speech communication. My primary research goal is to uncover the dynamical principles that structure speech communication. My previous work discovered dynamical laws that govern speech movements (see , and ). My current research is developing new approaches to inferring time-varying control structures from higher-dimensional speech data (with Aneta Stefanovska).
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Interpretable acoustic-articulatory inversion. We are developing physics-informed machine learning for building interpretable models that link speech acoustics to vocal tract movements and the underlying control dynamics of speech (with ).
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Articulatory dynamics across speakers and languages. I use vocal tract imaging to study how speakers coordinate articulatory movements during speech, and to test predictions from dynamical models. A central question is whether speakers and languages differ in their dynamical organization, and whether this results in different articulatory strategies (with ).
Current Teaching
I am not teaching during the 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27 academic years due to research grant commitments.
PhD Supervision Interests
I am interested in supervising students in the following areas: articulatory phonetics, vocal tract imaging, Articulatory Phonology / Task Dynamics, mathematical modelling of speech production and spoken language, computational speech processing, voice and robotics, bioacoustics, biomechanics.
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01/10/2025 → 31/12/2027
Research
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01/04/2024 → 30/12/2025
Research
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01/10/2022 → …
Research
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01/09/2019 → 31/08/2022
Research
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01/07/2014 → 30/04/2016
Other
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01/06/2014 → 31/12/2018
Other
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01/10/2009 → 30/09/2012
Research
Participation in conference - Academic
Invited talk
Symposium
Invited talk
Invited talk
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Invited talk
Editorial activity
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Invited talk
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
- Phonetics Lab