Research focus

Mili Kuruvilla-Dugdale directs the Speech Perception and Kinematics (SPeaK) Lab. Her research focuses on the articulatory mechanisms that contribute to speech loss in neurodegenerative diseases with the goal of developing more sensitive motor speech assessments, supporting the SLP clinical degree program. Another area of research investigates the psychophysical and psychometric properties of auditory perceptual methods used in assessment. She and her collaborators are also working on innovative systems to accurately track tongue dysfunction and build personalized electronic voices for individuals with progressive speech loss. Her research is funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Current and past courses taught

• CSD:4030 Experiential Learning: Community Engagement Through Communication and Literacy Programs
• CSD:4115 Structural Disorders
• CSD:5238 Motor Speech Disorders
• CSD:5310 Scientific Writing

Scholarly profile and resources

Learn more about Mili's research impact via:

• ORCiD,
• Research Group Website. 

Active grants

• NIH NIDCD R21DC019952, Generating Personalized Synthetic Speech for Progressive Dysarthria Using Severity-Appropriate Adaptation Strategies for Neural Text-to-Speech and Voice Conversion. Role: PI 

• All India Institute of Speech and Hearing Research Board, Spatiotemporal stability of articulatory movements in healthy older adults, Role: Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI)

Selected publications

• NIDCD R21 Generating Personalized Synthetic Speech for Progressive Dysarthria Using Severity-Appropriate Adaptation Strategies for Neural Text-to-Speech and Voice Conversion
• Stipancic, K., Golzy, M., Zhao, Y., Pinkerton, L., Rohl, A., & Kuruvilla-Dugdale, M. (in press). Improving perceptual speech ratings: The effects of auditory training on judgments of dysarthric speech. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
• Kuruvilla-Dugdale, M., & Mefferd, A. (2022). Articulatory performance in dysarthria: Using a data-driven approach to estimate articulatory demands and deficits. Brain Sciences, 12(10), 1409-1428.
• Kim, D., Kuruvilla-Dugdale, M., Riesthal, M., Robin, J., Bagnato, F., & Mefferd, A. (2021). Articulatory correlates of stress pattern disturbances in talkers with dysarthria. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 64(6S), 2287-2300.
• Zhao, Y., Song, M., Yue, Y., & Kuruvilla-Dugdale, M. (2021, July). Personalizing TTS Voices for Progressive Dysarthria. In 2021 IEEE EMBS International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics (pp. 1-4).