What is voice quality?
Voice quality can be defined as the variation in laryngeal settings that co-occurs with the oral articulation of a vowel or consonant.  Variations in voice quality may occur on several linguistically interesting levels.  One level is the voice quality that is associated with one's personal identity (e.g. I sound like myself and not my sister or my mother) or mimicry; there are also changes in voice quality associated with emotional speech.  Voice quality may also be varied throughout a person's speech, possibly in relationship with other prosodic domains, such as intonation.  Furthermore, many languages, such as Igbo, Nepali, Hmong and Zapotec, use different voice qualities (e.g., creaky, breathy, murmur, pressed, etc.) to make phonological contrasts.  Here are examples of a word in San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec using creaky voice (the word is rdaaa', meaning 'lets go of')and breathy voice (the word is rubih, meaning 'makes noise').

Education

• Ph.D. in Linguistics (2002) University of California, Los Angeles.  Dissertation:  Voice Quality and Prosody in English.  (PDF version - 1.76 MB; abstract (PDF) - 5.97 KB; text file of data - 177 KB).  Committee Chairs:  Patricia A. Keating and Jody Kreiman.
• M.A. in Linguistics (2000)  University of California, Los Angeles.  Thesis:  A Comparison of Linguistic and Pathological BreathinessUsing the LF Model. (PDF version - 662 KB)  Committee chair: Patricia A. Keating.
• Diploma in Jewish Studies (1997) Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford.  Thesis: Standing Up to the Amidah: The Morning Service and Suffering.
• B.A. in Linguistics and Japanese Studies, Minor in Cognitive Science (1996) University of Pennsylvania.  Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

Publications and Presentations

• Epstein, M., N. Hacopian and P. Ladefoged, eds. (in progress)  Dissection of the Vocal Organs: A Guide for Speech Scientists.
• Epstein, M.A. (2002) Voice quality variations in English sentences. Poster presented at the 143rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (PDF version - 826 KB)
• Epstein, M.A. (2001)  Measuring voice quality in dynamic speech. Poster presented at the 141st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Chicago, Illinois. (PDF version - 938 KB)
• Epstein, M.A. and B. Payri. (2001)  The effects of vowel quality and pitch on spectral and glottal flow measurements of the voice source. Poster  presented at the 141st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Chicago, Illinois. (PDF version - 528 KB)
• Epstein, M. (2001)  Introduction to the acoustic analysis of laryngeal states.  Workshop presented at the Athabaskan Languages Conference,University of California, Los Angeles.
• Kreiman, J., B.R. Gerratt, B. Gabelman, N. Antoñanzas-Barroso, M. Epstein. (2000)  User’s Guide: Analysis and Synthesis of Pathological Voice Quality.  Unpublished Technical Report.
• Kreiman, J., B.R. Gerratt and M. Epstein.  (2000)  Effects of listener experience on measures of voice quality.  Poster presented at the 140th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Newport Beach, California.
• Epstein, M.A.  (2000)  A Comparison of Linguistic and Pathological Breathiness Using the LF Model.  Poster presented at the 139th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Atlanta, Georgia.
• Epstein, Melissa A. (2000)  All the sounds of all the world’s languages. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics. (PDF version - 24 KB)
• Epstein, Melissa A.  (1999)  On the Singular Indefinite Article in English.  UCLA Working Papers in Syntax. (PDF version - 146 KB)
• Epstein, M., B. Gabelman, N. Antoñanzas-Barroso, B. Gerratt, J. Kreiman. (1999)  Source model adequacy for pathological voice synthesis. Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Phonetics Science (ICPhS) 99. (PDF version - 77 KB)

Teaching and Research Experience

• Instructor for Teaching with Technology (Spring, 2002)
• Teaching Assistant for Experimental Phonetics (Fall, 2001)
• Instructor for Teaching with Technology (Spring, 2001)
• Teaching Assistant for Introduction to General Phonetics (Winter, 2001).
• Staff Research Associate, Voice Lab, UCLA, Jody Kreiman, Supervisor (Spring, 2000).
• Assisted in designing and running experiments for the development of a real-time speech synthesizer to be used in diagnosing patients with pathological voices.
• Graduate Research Assistant, Phonetics Lab, UCLA,  Patricia Keating, Supervisor (Fall, 1999).
• Created an instruction manual for HLSyn.  Assisted in maintaining equipment of Phonetics Lab.
• Computer Research Assistant, Linguistics Department, UCLA (1997, 1998).
• Ran the departmental computer lab and assisted faculty, students and staff with daily computer usage.  Helped the department plan for long term computer usage.
• Independent Study, Electrical Engineering Department, University of Pennsylvania, Jan Van der Spiegel, Supervisor (1995-1996).
• Studied neural networks and speech processing.  Built a neural network to recognize vowels.
• Intern, Linguistics & Speech and Hearing Sciences Departments, The Ohio State University, Mary Beckman, Supervisor (1995).
• Created a database of nonsense words for a test of children with speech impediments.  Completed preliminary tests on adult subjects.

• Linguistics Department Representative to the Humanities Council of the Graduate Student Association, UCLA (1999-2000; 2000-2001; 2001-2002).
• Secretary of the Humanities Council of the Graduate Student Association, UCLA (2000-2001; 2001-2002).
• Executive Committee, West Coast Conference in Formal Linguistics XIX, UCLA (2000).
• Student Council Representative, Speech Communication Technical Council, Acoustical Society of America (2000-present).
• Vice Chair, Student Council, Acoustical Society of America (2000-present).

Last updated 20 June 2002