Eleanor Chodroff
University of Zurich | Department of Computational Linguistics
firstname dot lastname at uzh dot ch
Lab Members
Bogdan Pricop
Bogdan is a PhD student at the University of Zurich in the Department of Computational Linguistics, currently working on the SNF project "Universals and Variation in Speech Production" supervised by Prof. Dr. Eleanor Chodroff and Prof. Dr. Volker Dellwo. His PhD topic is on the study of speech universals from three perspectives: cross-linguistic generalizability, perception & cognition and production constraints. He is also interested in the intersection of phonology and phonetics and large corpora analyses. Bogdan received his BA in Modern Applied Languages at the University of Bucharest and his MA in Linguistics with a focus on Phonetics and Speech Sciences at the University of Zurich.
Jiachen Ma
Jiachen is a PhD student at the University of Zurich in the Department of Computational Linguistics, supervised by Prof. Dr. Eleanor Chodroff and Prof. Dr. Volker Dellwo. Her research focuses on the phonetics–phonology interface, particularly the acoustic realization of phonological contrasts. She is interested in corpus-based phonetic research, acoustic analysis, and cross-linguistic variation, including less-studied languages and varieties such as Swiss German dialects and Arabic. Jiachen received her BA in Arabic Language and Literature from Xi'an International Studies University (西安外国语大学) and her MA in Linguistics from the University of Zurich.
Xiyang Li
Xiyang is a PhD student at the University of Zurich in the Department of Computational Linguistics.
Zach Hopton
Zach is a PhD student at the University of Zurich in the Department of Computational Linguistics. He’s currently working on the SNF project “Strengthening the Role of Generative Machine Learning in Psycholinguistics,” supervised by Prof. Dr. Eleanor Chodroff and Prof. Dr. Lena Jäger. He is specifically interested in using spoken language models to deepen our understanding of speech comprehension and patterns in the structure of spoken language. He is also interested in spoken language technology for low-resource language varieties. Zach obtained his MA in Computational Linguistics at the University of Zurich and his BS in Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Learn more here.
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Annie Baker
Annie is a PhD student at the University of Zurich and works on crosslinguistic variation in speaker-specific phonetic realizations.
Lab Alumni
Dr. Miao Zhang
Miao is now an Assistant Professor at Macau University of Science and Technology. Prior to this, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich in the SNSF project “Universals and variation in speech production” and completed his PhD at the University at Buffalo.
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Dr. Xinzi Hou
Xinzi is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her PhD at the University of York in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science. Her research interests are in phonetics and phonology, especially in tone, intonation, and Chinese dialects. She is also interested in the languages of China's neighbouring countries that are influenced by Sinitic languages. Her PhD thesis examined the relationship between tone and intonation in Nanning Mandarin. Xinzi received her BA in Chinese language and literature from Beijing Normal University and her MA in Linguistics from University College London.
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Dr. Leah Bradshaw
Leah received her PhD from the University of Zurich having worked on the SNSF project “Dynamics of indexical information in speech and its role in speech communication and speaker recognition” and was co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Volker Dellwo, Prof. Dr. Lena Jäger and Prof. Dr. Eleanor Chodroff. Leah completed a BA in English Language and Linguistics (University of Sheffield, UK), followed by an MSc in Forensic Speech Science (University of York, UK). Her PhD project investigated the role of indexical acoustic properties to assist decision making in discriminating and identifying speakers, and the possibility of using different experimental techniques (namely, eye-tracking) to gain insights into this decision making process.
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Dr. Emily P. Ahn
Emily received her PhD from the University of Washington in 2025, supervised by Gina-Anne Levow, Eleanor, and Richard Wright. Her PhD research focused on phonetic and phonological typology from a computational linguistic perspective.
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Dr. Liang Zhao
Liang is currently an Assistant Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. She received her PhD from the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York in 2024. Her dissertation was on the "Production and perception of lexical tone variation in Mandarin dialects". She was supervised by Eleanor and Prof. Paul Foulkes.
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Dr. Umar Gombe Muhammad
Umar received his PhD from the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York in 2022. His dissertation was on "A Comparative Phonological Analysis of Varieties of English Spoken by Native Speakers of Nigerian Languages (Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri and Yoruba) for the Determination of Speakers’ Origins". Umar was supervised by Prof. Peter French and Eleanor.