meet the lab
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Dr. Matthew Goupell, PI
Dr. Goupell is the director of the Auditory Perception and Modeling Lab, located at the University of Maryland in College Park. He grew up in Mt. Pleasant, MI. He attended Hope College, majoring in physics and mathematics. He studied with Bill Hartmann, and graduated from Michigan State University in 2005 with his PhD in physics. His dissertation was on modeling how the binaural system detects small differences between the ears. He spent three years in Vienna, Austria working for the Academy of Sciences in the lab of Bernhard Laback, where he researched sound localization in bilateral cochlear-implant users. He then moved to Madison, WI to the Binaural Hearing and Speech Lab of Ruth Litovsky for two years. He began his work investigating binaural masking level differences and decorrelation detection with cochlear-implant users. In the fall of 2011, he started as an assistant professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at UMD, and was promoted to associate professor in Spring 2016. He continues to focus his research on cochlear implants, sound localization, understanding speech in noise, and neural modeling. He teaches hearing science, psychoacoustics, and cochlear implants.
RESEARCH STAFF
Chengjie (Gary) Huang, Post-doctoral Fellow
Chengjie (Gary) Huang is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at University of Maryland College Park. His primary interest is in how sensory systems utilize various strategies to solve problems encountered in the environment. Trained as an animal physiologist in his Ph.D. at McGill University and his first postdoc at University College London, he investigated questions pertaining to the electrosensory system in Weakly-electric Fish and the auditory system in the Mongolian Gerbil respectively. Here at UMD, he is interested in extending his work to the human auditory system, focusing on simultaneous electrophysiology and pupillometry measurements to understand how the brain processes speech sounds and the role of listening effort in age-related hearing loss individuals.
Miranda Cleary, Assistant Research Scientist
Miranda Cleary is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Auditory Perception and Modeling Lab. She worked part-time in the Goupell lab from 2014-2016 and returned to the lab full-time in Fall 2019. She holds an undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science from Dartmouth College and a PhD in Psychology & Cognitive Science from Indiana University Bloomington. She completed post-doctoral training in the Speech and Hearing Sciences department at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Her primary research interest is the perception of speech via cochlear implants.
Mary Almae Ardita, Lab Manager
Mary is a graduate of St. Mary's College with a major in Biology and Neuroscience.
PH.D. STUDENTS
Anna Tinnemore, PhD Student
Anna Tinnemore came to the University of Maryland College Park in 2017 to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. Her research examines the effects of different sources of context on the speech understanding of listeners with and without cochlear implants. She earned her AuD from the University of Arizona (2017) and both a Master's in Computational Linguistics and a Bachelor's in Linguistics from the University of Washington (2007, 2005).
Paul Mayo, PhD Student
Paul Mayo received his Doctor of Clinical Audiology degree from the University of Maryland in 2023 and Masters in Audio Engineering from Belmont University in 2018. He spent his audiology externship with the Hearing Research Program (PI: Judy Dubno) at The Medical University of South Carolina, where he performed clinical tests for a longitudinal study of age-related hearing loss and developed machine learning models for interpreting handwritten audiograms. His engineering work involved nonlinear systems modeling, algorithm design, and audio signal processing. Paul's current research interests include digital signal processing, cochlear implants, sound localization, fine structure processing, and auditory neuroscience.
Obada AlQasem, PhD Student
Obada AlQasem came to the University of Maryland College Park in 2022 to pursue a PhD in Hearing and Speech Science. He is a practicing audiologist, and he previously earned an MSc in Advanced Audiology from the University of Manchester (2020) and a Bachelor’s in Hearing and Speech Sciences from the University of Jordan (2013, 2017).
Angelina Bilokon, PhD Student
Angelina Bilokon is currently a PhD student at the University of Maryland. Her focus of interest is in auditory processing and hearing loss due to auditory trauma. She is working in the Auditory Perception and Modeling Lab as a graduate research assistant for the binaural hearing project.
AU.D. / GRAD STUDENTS
Danielle Schopf, AuD Student
Erin Doyle, AuD Student
Erin Doyle is an Audiology student in the lab. She graduated from the University of Maryland with her B.S. in Neuroscience in 2022 and joined the lab soon after. She is currently involved in research investigating the effects of aging on the auditory system.
Natalie Field, AuD Student
Natalie Field is an Audiology student in the lab. She graduated from the University of Maryland with her B.A. in Hearing and Speech Science in 2023. She has an interest in tinnitus and hyperacusis research. She is currently involved in APM's pupillometry studies and investigates listening effort in individuals with cochlear implants.
Kylie Kelleher, AuD Student
Kylie Kelleher is a student in the Doctoral Program in Clinical Audiology at the University of Maryland. She graduated from California State University, East Bay with her B.S. in Speech Pathology and Audiology. Kylie is working in the APM Lab as a graduate assistant. Her interests include speech perception and cortical processing of sound in relation to cochlear implant users.
Megan Hallihan, AuD Student
Madison Rolf, AuD Student
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Seren Avenilla
Seren is an undergraduate student in the lab. She is majoring in Hearing and Speech Sciences and hopes to pursue an AuD degree after undergrad. She enjoys working with participants and learning about hearing and audiological research in the lab!
Vanessa Reyes
Vanessa Reyes is an undergraduate research student in the lab. She is a Junior Hearing and Speech Sciences major and an Art History minor. She is a member of the first ever REACH cohort, recently joining the world of research in the fall of 2023. She is interested in a future career in Clinical Audiology and hopes to pursue a specialty in pediatrics. Her research interests include temporal processing and speech perception among adults who wear cochlear implants.
Milana Klopouh
Milana is an undergraduate student studying Physiology and Neurobiology at the University of Maryland. She has plans to work in the medical field in the future and has recently joined the lab, where she is currently assisting in research investigating the effects of aging on the auditory system.
Sarah Brightcliffe - Sarah Brightcliffe is currently a junior at the University of Maryland graduating in the spring of 2025. She is a Hearing and Speech Sciences major and a Human Development minor. She is involved in the Delta Gamma sorority and is treasurer of Maryland’s National Student Speech Language and Hearing Association. Sarah joined the lab in Fall 2023 and has been enjoying working with all of the staff and study participants!
Owen Bitner
Milena Costantino
Yuri Kim
Anika Peshwa
Morgan Platnick
Nikolos Migineishvili
Featured Alumni
Post-Doc, 2019-2023
Current position: Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Kristina DeRoy Milvae, PhD, AuD, CCC-A
Post-Doc, 2017-2022
Current position: Assistant Professor, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, University at Buffalo.
Post-Doc, 2018-2020
Current position: Assistant Professor, Communication Science and Disorders, Florida State University
PhD Student, 2014-2020
Current position: Research Scientist, Starkey Hearing
Marina Cox, AuD
AuD Student, 2019-2020
Current position: Research Audiologist, Phonak Auditory Research Center
Maureen Shader, AuD., PhD., CCC-A
PhD Student, 2013-2019
Current position: Assistant Professor, Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University
Summer research student 2013, 2014
Current position: Senior Research Scientist, Cochlear, Lone Tree, Colorado, USA
Francisco Rodríguez Campos, PhD
Post-Doc, 2013-2015
Current position: Principal Project Officer at ECRI
Faculty Research Assistant 2012-2013
Current position: Assistant Professor, Psychology, University of Wisconsin LaCrosse
LAB ALUMNI
Jordan Abramowitz
Mikayla Abrams
Ginny Alexander
Pallavi Atluri
Taylor Bakal
Mary Barrett
Regina Baumgärtel
Reem Bechara
Taylor Beinke
Golda Bonaparte
Kristen Carlson
Erin Catob
Allison Choi
Ashley Chwastyk
Hannah Cohen
Stefano Consentino
Marina Cox
Shelby Creelman
Marjan Davoodian
Bailey Dibella
Sara Dougherty
Kyle Easter
Daniel Eisenberg
R. B. Ellis
Lauren Evans
Sarah Ferrell
Stephen Fong
Dayna Gager
Casey Gaskins
Alyssa Giammetta
Peyton Gomes
Brisia Gonzalez
Samantha Green
Kia Griffith
Kelly Hanscom
Daeja Harvey
Allison Heuber
Hannah Johnson
Becca Kelly (Higgins)
Danielle King
Elizabeth Kolberg
Nishani Kuruppu
Patricia Laramore
Emily Leavitt
Tori Levi
Gavin Mahoney
Anna Martin
Angelo Molina
Debbie Moon
Liz McAllen
Abby Means
Kelly Miller
Udoka Oji
Leila Oyekola
Alexandra Papanicolaou
Sasha Pletnikova
Alicia Proctor
Elisa Rademacher
Rachel Raqueno
Lindsay Roberts
Beth Rosen
Philip Saunders
Alanna Schloss
Sarah Shin
Matan Simhi
Roksana Soleimanpour
Olga Stakhovskaya
Madison Suarez
Laura Taliaferro
Paige Tunic
Emily Waddington
Arifi Waked
Erin Walter
Marti Weiner
Sarah Weinstein
Tracy Wilkinson
Lauren Wilson
Adelia Witt
Sen Xu
Calli Yancey
Madeline Yoder
Erin Young
David Yun