1. business and industrial
2. biomedical

The MARCS Institute
University of Western Sydney
Annual Report
2014
Table of Contents
1.
About the Institute
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Mission
1.3 Goals
1.4 The Institute at a glance
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1
1
1
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2.
Director’s Reports
2.1 The MARCS Institute in 2014
2.2 Key Review Points
2.3 Key Coming Year Points
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4
5
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3.
Reports on each Program
3.1 Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience
3.2 Human-Machine Interaction
3.3 Multisensory Processing
3.4 Music Cognition and Action
3.5 Speech and Language
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8
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17
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4.
Year in Review
4.1 People
4.2 Higher Degree Research Students
4.3 Events and Community Engagement
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5.
Management Structure and Operation
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6.
Appendices
6.1 Staff List
6.2 Casual Research Support Staff working on projects
6.3 Staff Biographies
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1. About the Institute
1.1
Introduction
The MARCS Institute is a multidisciplinary institute for basic and applied research investigating human
behaviour and communication from infancy to adulthood, in real and virtual worlds, under conditions that
are normal, heightened (e.g., performing and creative arts) or impaired (e.g., developmental delay, sensory
loss), at behavioural, neural and computational levels of explanation. The MARCS Institute incorporates
research from a wide range of disciplines – psycholinguistics, music, engineering, computer science,
linguistics, mathematics, neuroscience and communication arts, and provides a rich mentoring environment
for established and emerging high quality researchers.
The MARCS Institute interdisciplinary team investigates how we learn language and handle foreign accents,
program robots for human interaction, communicate with infants and the elderly, and monitor emotive
functions of music. And we apply our work by designing electronics inspired by neural systems, building
better biomedical devices, analysing heightened performance in the creative arts, and addressing impaired
performance in developmental delay and sensory deficit.
1.2
Mission
To conduct excellent human communication science research, within and across five research areas;
Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience, Human-Machine Interaction, Multisensory Processing, Music
Cognition and Action, and Speech and Language.
1.3
Goals
The goals of The MARCS Institute are to:
⋅
Strive for research excellence, specifically focusing on human communication science,
emphasising laboratory-based behavioural, neural and computational methods.
⋅
Seek and straddle the edges of disciplines through strategic openness to collaboration.
⋅
Apply the content and methodological foci of the MARCS Institute to interdisciplinary research in
academe and industry partnerships, and learn to apply new methods as required.
⋅
Maintain and extend success rates in Australian Competitive Grants and Co-operative Research
Centre Income (Categories 1 & 4) and greatly increase public sector, industry and other funding
(categories 2 & 3).
⋅
Provide a vibrant research hub for:
o The MARCS Institute personnel and UWS researchers in cognate areas – engineering,
medicine, psychology, linguistics, music science, neuroscience, speech science,
mathematics, education, and communication arts, and others as they arise
o National and international collaborators
o Intensive expert training of undergraduate, honours, and Higher Degree Research (HDR)
candidates
⋅
Produce high quality research outcomes with strong impact in terms of publications, external
funding, and HDR student training.
1.4
The Institute at a glance
The MARCS Institute has research laboratories on the Bankstown, Campbelltown, Kingswood, and
Parramatta campuses, and we conduct research in the five research programs described below.
Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience: Leader, Professor André van Schaik
In the Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience program, we conduct neurophysiological and
psychophysical investigations combined with computational and electronic modelling to reverse engineer
signal processing in the brain. The outcomes are then applied to create electronic sensors via neuromorphic
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engineering – the application of knowledge of how signals are processed in the brain to build electronic
signal processing systems with electronically modelled neural computation at the sensor. We also develop
electronics and signal processing for biomedical applications.
Human Machine Interaction: Leader, Professor Simeon Simoff
In the Human-Machine Interaction program, we analyse believability of the behaviour of virtual agents
“living” in cyber-physical worlds — what are the features of believability, how can they be formalised and
implemented in computational form, and how can believability be evaluated? We also investigate cyberphysical interfaces focussing both on virtual environments, and the tight integration of the virtual and
physical worlds populated by humans and virtual and robotic agents; build machinery and interfaces for
natural interaction between humans, robotic agents and virtual agents; and develop consistent visual
computing techniques (including information visualisation and visual languages) for assisting the creative
process of visual investigation and knowledge discovery.
Multisensory Processing: Leader, Professor Chris Davis
The multisensory processing of objects and actions underpins our sense of being in a stable, interpretable
world; we study this processing at the signal, brain and behavioural levels. The manner in which information
from the different senses is brought together in perception provides a scaffold for cognitive and social
development. In the Multisensory Processing program, we seek to understand the processes by which
multisensory information is combined, represented and acted upon. Specifically, we investigate such things
as: how the brain combines information to make predictions about the likely actions or intentions of others;
how speech (and speech related) gestures relate to the properties of vocal speech, and how multisensory
processing helps make information processing more robust.
Music Cognition and Action: Leader, Professor Kate Stevens
The Music Cognition and Action research program, with its customised perception and performance
laboratory, investigates the temporal dynamics in individual and group performance and perception of music
and dance. Coordination, precision, and communication in performing and perceiving music, action, and
dance are studied as the means to understand creativity, affect and emotion, learning and memory,
interpersonal interactions and social processes. Research questions include: how do processes of imagery,
attention and synchronisation contribute to high precision performance in musical and dance ensembles, and
to audience appreciation; how are complex sequences of movement and music learned, imagined, and
retained across minutes or across the lifespan?
Speech and Language: Leader, Professor Denis Burnham
Speech and Language abilities underpin much of human communication, and enhance, augment, and focus
our cognitive, creative and social skills. In the Speech and Language program, we conduct research with
infants, children and adults comparing performance both within and between language backgrounds.
Research foci include: speech perception and its relationship to first and second language learning and biand multi-lingualism; speech production and articulatory phonetics in a range of languages (including some
that are endangered); the phonetics and pragmatics of special speech registers; language skills such as word
learning and reading; and corpus (speech and other media) collection, storage, and access in database and
cloud-based virtual laboratory environments.
Members
The MARCS Institute is located across four UWS campuses; Bankstown, Campbelltown, Kingswood and
Parramatta with school-based researchers in Medicine, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics,
Linguistics, Psychology, and Communication Arts.
Institute Researchers: Dr Mark Antoniou, Dr Vincent Aubanel, Professor Catherine Best, Dr Paul Breen,
Professor Denis Burnham, Dr Yossi Buskila, Professor Anne Cutler, Professor Chris Davis, Professor Roger
Dean, Professor Philip de Chazal, Dr Donald Derrick, Dr Paola Escudero, Dr Dominique Estival, Dr Gaetano
Gargiulo, Dr Tara Hamilton, Associate Professor Caroline Jones, Dr Marina Kalashnikova, Dr Benjawan
Kasisopa, Associate Professor Peter Keller, Associate Professor Jeesun Kim, Dr Yatin Mahajan, Dr Jennifer
MacRitchie, Dr Andrew Milne, Dr Giacomo Novembre, Dr Kirk Olsen, Dr Varghese Peter, Dr Jason Shaw,
Dr Chris Stanton, Dr Klaus Stiefel, Professor Kate Stevens, Professor André van Schaik, Dr Manuel Varlet,
Dr Mark Wang, Dr Gregory Zelic.
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School-based Researchers: Dr Phoebe Bailey, Dr Ingvars Birznieks, Dr Anton Bogdanovych, Dr John
Cass, Dr Satomi Kawaguchi, Dr Christine Kitamura, Dr Antonio Lauto, Professor Vaughan Macefield, Dr
David Mahns, Dr Robert Mailhammer, Dr Karen Mattock, Professor John Morley, Dr Ahmed Moustafa, Dr
Omar Mubin, Dr Quang Vinh Nguyen, Dr Laurence Park, Dr Ruying Qi, Dr Rebecca Pinkus, Ms Kate
Richards, Professor Simeon Simoff, Associate Professor Glenn Stone, Professor Jonathan Tapson, Dr
Michael Tyler, Dr Tamara Watson, Dr Gabrielle Weidemann.
Honorary Adjunct Professors: Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings (2012-15), Professor Ronan Reilly
(2013-2016).
Honorary Adjunct Fellows: Dr Rikke Bundgaard-Nielsen (2012-2015), Dr Nigel Nettheim (2013-16), Dr
Barbara Tillmann (2014-2017)
HDR Students: Saeed Afshar, Tonya Agostini, Arnab Ahmed, Laurence Bruggeman, Leo Chong, Gregory
Cohen, Alison Creighton, Anne Dwyer, Jaydene Elvin, Mona Faris, Janise Farrell, Sarah Fenwick, Michael
Fitzpatrick, Steffen Herff, Waiel Jibrail, Patrick Kasi, Saya Kawase, Yvonne Leung, Samuel Mandal, Peta
Mills, Nhung Nguyen, Jia Hoong Ong, Anita Paas, Tim Paris, Valeria Peretokina, Tanya Pritchard, Nadi
Sadr, Richard Salmon, Simone Simonetti, Josephine Terry, Chetan Thakur, Staci Vicary, James Wright,
Richard Yanaky, Jia Ying.
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2. Director’s Report
2.1
The MARCS Institute in 2014
MARCS Institute is poised for the next stage in its
development. The new MARCS Institute Director in 2015
will be Professor Jonathan Tapson, a prominent researcher
in the Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience (BENS)
research program, and erstwhile Deputy Dean in the School
of Computing Engineering and Mathematics. Jonathan has a
background in engineering and entrepreneurship, and his
research is focused on building cognitive systems that
mimic the human brain. His combination of experience and
skills augurs well for MARCS’ development as a large,
mature, and productive academic and research unit at UWS,
and for development of internal MARCS management and leadership systems, for industry liaisons, external
collaborations, and closer MARCS-internal collaborations between the five MARCS research programs:
Biomedical Engineering & Neuroscience, Human-Machine Interaction, Multisensory Processing, Music
Cognition & Action, and Speech & Language.
The new Director of Research and Engagement at MARCS will be Professor Catherine Stevens. This new
University appointed role in 2015 will allow her dedicated time to engender research and research
collaboration within MARCS, within UWS, and well beyond; and to orchestrate activities to enrich
community engagement by MARCS and UWS.
For the past three years Professor André van Schaik has served, above and beyond, as the MARCS Research
Director. André has been instrumental in formalising the long-extant MARCS-internal grant review process,
and making this process even more effective. He has taken it upon himself to read all grant applications,
solicit reviews from other reviewers, and advise researchers, young and old alike, of the way forward in
making their grant applications clearer, more readable, and more scientifically robust. All this was done
while leading and extending the research excellence coming out of the Biomedical Engineering &
Neuroscience Research Program in MARCS.
At the beginning of 2014 Professor Barney Glover took office as the Vice-Chancellor of UWS, and over
2014 various changes to the make-up of the UWS Executive and other parts of the University structure have
been effected. Spearheaded by our new Institute Director, Jonathan Tapson, and our new Director of
Research and Engagement, Kate Stevens, MARCS will meet the demands of a changing tertiary and political
environment, and work with the new MARCS Executive to maintain and expand MARCS and UWS worldrenowned research excellence and MARCS well-established leadership at UWS.
In 2014 we appointed six new academics: Dr Mark Antoniou (Speech and Language), postdoctoral
researcher with Professor Anne Cutler (and soon thereafter was awarded an ARC Discovery Early Career
Researcher Award, DECRA); Dr Gaetano Gargiulo (Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience),
postdoctoral researcher with Professor André van Schaik; Dr Marina Kalashnikova (Speech and Language),
Researcher in Infant Studies and MARCS BabyLab Leader; Dr Jennifer MacRitchie (Music Cognition and
Action), postdoctoral researcher with Professor Kate Stevens; Dr Christopher Stanton (Human-Machine
Interaction), postdoctoral researcher with Professor Kate Stevens; and Dr Mark Wang (Biomedical
Engineering and Neuroscience), postdoctoral researcher with Professor André van Schaik.
On the Professional Staff Team there were four new appointments in 2014. Mr Ross Catanzariti, MARCS
Web and Communications Officer; Ms Candice Michael, Research Assistant for MARCS BabyLab and
BabyLab at Kingswood; Dr Josephine Terry, Research Officer working on Dr Gabrielle Weidemann's ARC
Discovery Grant; and Dr Andrew Wabnitz, Technical Officer for the Biomedical Engineering and
Neuroscience research program.
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MARCS is a lab-based research environment; our Higher Degree Research (HDR) students work in the
various MARCS labs and interact daily; so the MARCS Institute postgraduate areas on Bankstown and
Kingswood campuses are lively hubs of scholarship in which students exchange around ideas, and mentor
more junior students. Similar and even different paths to common research goals facilitates the sharing of
research skills and tools, and the diversity of interests allows new skills and approaches to be entertained and
employed. Despite the lively research environment, we do keep students moving onward and upward to other
arenas, usually postdoctoral or other academic and research positions (see Section 4: Year in Review HDRs).
In 2014, we had 20 visitors to the MARCS Institute for periods between one week and 12 months. Of these,
19 were international visitors, and of those, six were students. Our colloquium series, the weekly Monday
Evening Research Colloquium (MERCs) open to all and attended by MARCS academics and HDR students
from the various MARCS campuses (and at times supplemented by the Wednesday Afternoon Research
Colloquium, WARCs, if there are more visitors) was as strong as ever, with 43 presentations throughout the
year, 14 of these from international speakers. In addition, at our MARCS-all student-centred Monday
MARCS Meetings (MMMs), there were a total of 39 presentations – instructional presentations, practice
Confirmation of Candidature talks, student conference presentation practices, 3MT practices talks and so
forth. Finally, there are reading, writing, and discussion groups in the five different research programs in
which more specialist presentations, and journal writing and reading activities take place.
In January and February 2014, MARCS Institute continued its interdisciplinary Summer Internship program.
The UWS Jobs on Campus unit as well as the UWS Research Office administered the program. The MARCS
Internship Program continues to be planned, coordinated and championed by Dr Paola Escudero. 10 students
were recruited in total, with eight fully funded by the MARCS Institute and two by the UWS Research
Office; five in Speech and Language, two in Music Cognition and Action, one in Biomedical Engineering
and Neuroscience, and one in Multisensory Processing. The program involved introducing students to
research, and motivating them by having them conduct all stages of a research project from beginning to end.
The ultimate aim is to actively encourage high achieving students to positively be involved in research, and
the high level of student presentations at the end of the internship was evidence that this goal was
successfully achieved. One of our MARCS Interns, Ms Stacey Sherwood, received the award for best UWS
intern at the Jobs on Campus 2014 Award ceremony and another MARCS Intern, Ms Samra Alispahic, was
asked to give a speech at the same ceremony on her great experience at MARCS. All students were very
positive about the fantastic research experience they received during their internship and the skills they
learnt, which they will use for their future academic careers.
2.2
Key review points
2.2.1 Publications
Our HDR students continued to give papers at national and international conferences – an integral part of
their training, and to publish journal papers: 22 of the 53 MARCS conference presentations (41.51 per cent),
and eight of the 109 journal papers (7.34 per cent) involved MARCS Honours or HDR students. With the
increasing move to have students include journal papers in their doctoral theses, we aim for the journal
percentage to increase, and the conference to journal paper conversion rate to climb. In addition, in keeping
with our active collaboration with researchers in UWS Schools four of the 53 MARCS conference
presentations (7.55 per cent), and 24 of the 109 journal papers (22.02 per cent) involved MARCS
collaborators from UWS Schools.
2.2.2 HDR Completions and Student Activities
In 2014 there were three doctoral completions and two further submissions. Our total load at the start of 2014
was 36 students and at the end of 2014 33 students. HDR students attend and present at one (or more)
national conferences each year and are encouraged to attend an international conference in their second and
third years. In 2014, the MARCS Institute funded presentations at 11 different international events at which
students either presented at conferences, or carried out research with international colleagues. Students were
also funded to present at 13 national conferences, and three students were funded to attend nationally run
professional development courses.
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2.2.3 External Income
In 2014, the MARCS Institute had successes in grant applications, as follows: one ARC Centre of
Excellence, one Co-operative Research Centre, one ARC Discovery grant, one ARC Linkage grant, one
NHRMC grant, while international funding included two US Department of Defense grants, one Economic
and Social Research Council and one Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation grant. Our research
income target for 2014 was $1,900,000 and we brought in just over $3,000,000, 58 per cent above
expectations.
2.2.4 Awards, Honours, Distinctions, Achievements, Promotions
Professor Catherine Best was selected as the International Speech Communication Association’s (ISCA)
Distinguished Lecturer for the 2014-2015 term. ISCA is the leading international body concerned with
speech science and technology, and promotes activities and exchanges in all fields related to speech
communication, science and technology.
Professor Anne Cutler was presented as the 2014 ISCA Medallist at Interspeech 2014, the Annual
Conference of International Speech Communication Association (ISCA). Anne was awarded the ISCA
medal for scientific achievement in 2014.
Dr Paola Escudero was awarded Excellence in Research (Researcher of the Year) at the UWS ViceChancellor awards, which recognise and encourage excellent performance and achievements. Paola was
recognised for "epitomising first class research output and impact".
Dr Paul Breen and Dr Gaetano Gargiulo were accepted into the NSW Medical Device Commercialisation
Training Program. The three-month program contributes to the discovery and application of new treatments
and diagnostic techniques to improve patient outcomes.
Dr Gaetano Gargiulo was selected as one of five finalists for the Bupa Health Foundation Emerging Health
Researcher of the Year award. The award recognises the valuable contribution of emerging health
researchers to health outcomes for all Australians. Gaetano was nominated for his work developing the
Pneumocardiogram, an electrodeless, wearable system for simultaneous monitoring of cardiac and
respiratory function.
School-based researchers Dr Satomi Kawaguchi and Dr Quang Vinh Nguyen were awarded UWS
Learning and Teaching team awards. The awards for excellence in teaching recognise the dedication and
excellence of academic staff and acknowledge their expertise, skill and contribution to learning and teaching
at UWS.
PhD student Valeria Peretokina won the MARCS 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, a skills
development activity that challenges Research Higher Degree students to explain their research project to a
non-specialist audience in three minutes. Valeria was then awarded “People’s Choice” at the UWS 3MT
final. As the joint winner of the award, Valeria received a $500 prize and the opportunity to have her
presentation animated by 99 Scholars.
A number of MARCS Institute members received UWS Vice-Chancellor awards, which recognise and
encourage excellent performance and achievements. The Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience
(BENS) group, Dr Gaetano Gargiulo, Dr Gabrielle Weidemann, Dr Satomi Kawaguchi, Dr Tamara
Watson and Dr Omar Mubin all won awards.
MARCS intern Sarah Wright was awarded a student prize for her paper submission to the Australasian
International Speech Science & Technology (SST) conference. The SST conference aims to foster
collaboration among speech scientists, engineers, psycholinguists, audiologists, linguists, speech/language
pathologists and industrial partners.
Stacey Sherwood was the tied winner of the Most Outstanding Intern award at the UWS Careers &
Cooperative Education Awards function. A total of nine MARCS interns in the Jobs on Campus program
were recognised at the event, which recognises students and graduates who complete internships at UWS.
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2.3
Key points for the coming year
2015 sees MARCS under the leadership of a new Director, Professor Jonathan Tapson, and a new Research
Director, Professor Kate Stevens. We have several new postdoctoral researchers joining us: Dr Bronson
Harry and Dr Karen Mulak, who join the Music Cognition and Action and Speech and Language groups
respectively in February; Dr Sarah Macintyre and Dr Sophie Nicholls, who join the Biomedical Engineering
an Neuroscience group and the Centre of Excellence in March; Dr Christa Lam-Cassettari joining Speech
and Language in April; Dr Anne Burchfield, joining Speech and Language in May; and also in Speech and
Language, Dr Christopher Carignan, starting mid-year. We will also see our PhD student numbers increase
with nine new students offered PhD scholarships in late 2014.
This year will also see the inaugural meeting of the MARCS External Advisory Board – a body that is
intended to provide leadership to the Institute at the highest level. The membership consists of eight senior
figures from commerce, industry, the arts and external institutions, and three UWS members, including the
MARCS Director and Research Director.
Major research activities commencing in 2015 include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
ARC Discovery grant – Professor Christopher Davis and Associate Professor Jeesun Kim, ‘Elderly
speech perception in noise’
ARC Linkage grant – Associate Professor Caroline Jones, ‘Learning to Talk, Learning to Learn:
Effects of an early childhood language program in remote Northern Territory indigenous
communities’
ARC Future Fellowship – Associate Professor Peter Keller, ‘Psychological and neurophysiological
mechanisms underlying human interaction in musical contexts’
ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) – Dr Mark Antoniou, ‘Cracking the code
of successful language learning’
UWS Partnership Programme Grant with DSTO – Dr Tara Hamilton, ‘Optimisation of Supporting
Circuits for High-Density SPAD Arrays’
NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme L.SFPP 984840 – Dr Tara Hamilton,
‘Microelectronic 3D imaging and neuromorphic recognition for autonomous UAVs’
Two ARC Discovery Grants – MARCS School-based researchers Professor Vaughan Macefield and
Dr Tamara Watson
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3. Reports on Each Program/Theme
3.1 Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience
In 2014, BENS changed its name to Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience to better capture the extent of
its research. We have continued to develop and test several biomedical devices and it is expected that a
number of these will become available, either commercially or for free, for end users in 2015 and 2016.
Professor André van Schaik, the BENS Research Program Leader, started an ARC funded project on
Hardware Acceleration for Neural Systems and hired Dr Runchun Wang as a postdoctoral researcher on this
project. They are building a system that aims to simulate neural networks of a size similar to that of the
human brain (100 billion neurons, 100 trillion connections) to really understand how brains work. Simulating
such networks on standard computers in not possible because of their sheer size. Several groups are currently
building very expensive and proprietary hardware to solve this, but the results from these projects will not be
easily accessible to other researchers. However, in order to make real progress in neuroscience, many more
researchers need to be able to study these large-scale neural networks. Therefore, the team at BENS is
building a system from commercial hardware (Field Programmable Gate Arrays - FPGAs) that will cost only
a few thousand dollars. In 2014 they have already successfully implemented a system that simulates in real
time a network with two billion leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) neurons on an Altera DE5 FPGA board. The
full system will be made available for free in early 2016 for other neuroscientists to use.
In related work, they have implemented a version of the Neural Engineering Framework (NEF) on the same
hardware. NEF is a design approach developed at the University of Waterloo in Canada capable of building
large neural systems to perform cognitive tasks. It has been implemented on computers using high-level
programming languages, which makes creating the networks easy, however, these simulations run much
slower than real time. The hardware version implemented by Professor van Schaik and Dr Wang operates in
real time and allow real time simulation of more complicated NEF models As a proof of concept, they have
implemented a smart pattern recogniser that is capable of recognising five million digits per second. The
Altera and Xilinx University Programs have supported this work.
During 2014, the BENS group focused significantly on continuing the development of several bioelectronics
projects initiated in 2013. Among these projects, based upon IP developed by Dr Gargiulo, the team worked
towards the implementation of an innovative electrocardiographic model that includes all four limbs and
does not use any virtual reference potentials. The current electrocardiographic model uses only three of the
four limbs and the right leg is considered as ‘far-field’ for electrocardiographic signals. The right leg is
therefore used as a combined reference potential for the instrumentation and as an injection point for the so
called ‘right leg driver’, which is a signal that aims to reduce power-line and high-frequency noise in the
ECG recording. Unfortunately, following a modern trend in clinical practice aimed to reduce the burden for
patients, limb electrodes have been moved from ankles and wrists to the torso resulting in biasing of the ECG
signal and affecting the diagnosis. Using a 4-limb model and Dr Gargiulo’s true unipolar ECG device, which
does not require any virtual reference or right leg driver, the team has started quantifying the biasing
affecting standard ECG recordings. They are also looking at how this may influence diagnosis in a clinical
scenario targeting cardiac failure patients at Campbelltown and Camden hospitals.
Another BENS bioelectronics project developed a breakthrough technique to non-invasively monitor cardiac
and lung functions without the use of electrodes. The device, based around IP developed by Dr Gargiulo and
Dr Breen, consists of a number of electro-resistive bands embedded in a garment shaped like a standard Tshirt. The device continually monitors the volume of the chest and allows monitoring of the lung and heart
volume. The device is so sensitive that it can also monitor the volume of blood ejected from the heart during
contraction (cardiac stroke volume). The project attracted $25,000 (internal UWS funding) in 2013 to cover
expenses of this cutting edge research, was nominated as a finalist to the 2014 BUPA Health Foundation
Emerging Research award (and awarded a further $5,000), and is the subject of two PCT patent applications.
The BENS team is working towards the commercialisation and clinical evaluation of the device for sleep
studies and intensive care units.
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Dr Yossi Buskila, along with Dr Paul Breen and Mr James Wright, further developed a commercial
prototype of the Braincubator. They have validated the Braincubator's efficiency as an instrument that
extends the lifespan of brain slices and presented their results at the IEEE-EMBS 36 annual meeting
(Chicago, IL) and published a detailed report in the new open access Nature journal, Scientific Reports
(ranked 5th among all multidisciplinary science primary research journals). Moreover, their work was
highlighted by the scientific blog “This Science is Crazy”.
Dr Buskila updated his electrophysiology setup to include voltage sensitive dyes and high speed imaging
techniques for optogenetics. He established a method to induce STDP using optogenetics tools, which will
aid him to study the precision and reliability of neuronal signals along the dendritic tree. Furthermore, he
established a second electrophysiology setup for student training.
The bi-directional communication between neurons and astrocytes is one of the most intriguing questions in
neurobiological research today. Dr Buskila has investigated the potential role for astrocytes, which are the
most prevalent non-neuronal cell type in the brain in mediating the transition between different frequencies
of neural oscillations, which are involved with many physiological processes such as selective attention,
sleep and memory. His preliminary work indicates that increased extracellular K+ concentration can
modulate the biophysical properties of individual neurons such as excitability, synchronization and
oscillation frequency. As astrocytes are the only cells in the brain capable of K+ buffering through their
intracellular connections (gap junctions), modulation of their inherent capabilities to clear K+ from the
extracellular milieu is a potential target to impact neural oscillations and thus tuning brain waves. Moreover,
it has the potential to develop future treatments for astrocytic related brain malfunctions, including
conditions such as epilepsy.
The collaborations between Dr Tara Hamilton and her industry partners AdBidx Pty. Ltd., the Defence
Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), Perceptia Devices Australia and Eldorado Brazil, continued
in 2014. The award of the NSW Techvoucher with AdBidx was finalised and work began on the project in
2014. The work involves using neuromorphic algorithms to track and identify different demographics in
shopping environments. Dr Hamilton, Professor Tapson and Professor van Schaik also submitted an ARC
Linkage Grant Proposal with AdBidx for 2015. Dr Hamilton’s collaboration with the DSTO and additional
collaborators at Monash University and Milan Polytechnic, was successful in securing a 400k Euro NATO
grant that will begin in 2015. The grant, entitled "Microelectronic 3D Imaging and Neuromorphic
Recognition for Autonomous UAVs”, aims to bring neuromorphic recognition to single-photon avalanche
diode (SPAD) arrays and use these on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tracking and autonomous target
identification. Also with the DSTO, Dr Hamilton was successful in securing UWS Partnerships Programme
funding. The project, which aims to optimise integrated circuits for speed and area in the DSTO’s SPAD
array IC, has begun and a chip is scheduled to be sent for fabrication in July 2015. In 2014, Dr Hamilton
continued her long-running collaboration with Perceptia Devices Australia and Eldorado Brazil. An IC was
sent for fabrication in November 2014 and, together with Professor van Schaik and Associate Professor
Torsten Lehmann at UNSW, an ARC Linkage Grant was submitted for 2015. Along with the successful
industry collaborations in 2014, Dr Hamilton participated in outreach for BENS/MARCS/UWS, putting
together a gifted and talented day called “Top MARCS” for students at Bankstown Girls’ High School. The
day was very well received and another day is planned for 2015.
Professor Philip de Chazal has been looking at ways of advancing the field of sleep medicine by researching
ways of monitoring sleep that are both highly accurate and do not disturb sleep. Graduate student Nadi Sadr
successfully applied Extremely Learning Machines to the problem of predicting sleep apnoea events using
the electrocardiogram. This work was the basis of her winning the people’s choice and receiving the runner
up prize in the MARCS 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Dr Madhuka Jayawardhana successfully
demonstrated that breathing rate and breathing amplitude could be obtained from the photoplethymsogram
(PPG) signal and went on to show that a minimally invasive system detecting obstructive and central
apnoeas could be obtained from the PPG signal. Graduate student Gregory Cohen investigated using the
ECG and oximetry signals to predict sleep/wake in paediatric subjects and showed that it could be done more
accurately than current systems based on accelerometers. Working with collaborators from ResMed,
Professor de Chazal published research showing that a radar-based motion sensor could successfully track
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the breathing patterns of patients with lung failure and that by monitoring breathing patterns it was possible
to predict a sudden exacerbation of the disease.
In other work, Professor de Chazal, Professor Tapson and Professor van Schaik looked at Extreme Learning
Machines performing classification tasks. By using an alternative cost function during the training phase,
they were able to develop higher performing systems with only a moderate increase in the training times.
Dr Paul Breen, in association with collaborators at New Jersey Veterans Affairs, John Hopkins Medical
Institute, Azusa Pacific University and National University of Ireland Galway, was awarded over $700,000
through a US Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. This research involves the use of a
portable wearable neural stimulator to treat vestibular impairment caused by Gulf War Illness.
Dr Breen and Professor Lucy Chipchase, Head of Physiotherapy, School of Science & Health were awarded
a SSH Seed Grant to examine the effect of two novel peripheral electrical stimulation paradigms on cortical
excitability.
Dr Breen and Dr Gargiulo both completed the competitive Medical Device Commercialization Training
Program run by ATP Innovation on the behalf of the NSW Government, Department of Health. This
program culminated in a pitch given to over 200 from the industry and health sectors including the NSW
Minister for Health.
Stephen Smith joined BENS as a Summer Scholar developing a Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulator that
will be used in some upcoming human research. UNSW 3rd year student Chris Sedgewick also joined BENS
as a Summer Intern. His project revolves around Finite Element Analysis of the electrical response of the
body to various external stimuli. This work forms part of a major on-going project linking multiple research
projects at BENS.
2014 was also a successful year for publications with a number of important papers on innovative
neuromorphic algorithms being published. Additionally, a paper pioneered by BENS members on an
interesting new area of research, Stochastic Electronics, was published in the IEEE flagship publication, The
Proceedings of the IEEE.
10
3.2
Human-Machine Interaction
In 2014 the Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) program has strategically revisited its original streams,
refining its overall focus on the science of interaction into the following delineated research streams:
Believable Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Robot Interaction, and Human-Information Interaction.
The developments in each of these research streams are reported in further detail below.
Believable Human-Computer Interaction
The Believable Human-Computer Interaction stream focused on further extension of the computational
models of believability of intelligent virtual agents, and the development of simulation technology and
evaluation of the developments through joint co-creation of simulation environments capturing the
Aboriginal knowledge about the environment.
Theoretical work: The Believable Human-Computer Interaction stream is designed in a way that it bridges to
the research in simulation technology for Digital Humanities and e-Research in cultural studies. In 2014, we
have continued developing the believability theme of HMI. The concept of believability has been formally
defined and the corresponding paper has been presented at the Australasian Conference on Artificial Life and
Computational Intelligence (ACALCI 2015)1, with subsequent publication in the LNAI volume by SpringerVerlag. During his sabbatical visit in Spain, Anton Bogdanovych, together with researchers in IIIA-CSIC in
Barcelona, have further extended the concept of believability of intelligent virtual agents by integrating the
computational models of crime and punishment, and emotional reaction to those as a component of
believability. This required formalisation of the theory of crime and punishment and the relationship of these
concepts to the emotional state of the affected agents. A journal paper on this topic is currently in
preparation. The 2013 work on connecting computational models of physiological needs of virtual agents
with their believable behaviour in virtual environments has been extended and published in the proceedings
of the Social Simulation Conference (SSC 2014)2 and in the proceedings of the Simulating the Past to
Understand Human History Conference (SPUHH 2014). The two conferences were part of the annual
meeting of the European Social Simulation Association, September 1-5 2014, at Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona.
Technology development and experimentation: In 2014, we have continued our work on the development of
formal specification of a novel architecture of an Organisation-Centred Multi-Agent System that would
facilitate the design and execution of complex and highly accurate agent simulations. On the development
side, we continued our work on computational culture re-enactment technology, extending our platform
beyond 3D Virtual Worlds into the area of video games. The methodology for culture re-enactment and the
technology have been tested on the design and development of proof-of-concept prototype of immersive
computer simulation of various aspects of life and events that have occurred throughout the history of
Aboriginal people living in the present area of the Parramatta South campus of UWS. The project was part of
the broader “Generations of Knowledge” project and involved Tomas Trescak, Anton Bogdanovych and
Simeon Simoff from the HMI team and Melissa Williams and Terry Sloan from the School of Business.
At the end of 2014, both simulations - “The City of Uruk” and “The Generations of Knowledge” have been
completed in the gaming environment of Unity 3D. This platform allowed us to conduct large-scale crowd
simulations in real time and investigate the issues concerning believability of large groups of virtual agents
acting together in a gaming environment. In our work on believability technology we have focused on
integrating state of the art HCI equipment into multimodal interactions with virtual characters and virtual
environments. One of such advances included integrating the virtual reality headset Oculus rift in
combination with Leap Motion as a tool for interacting with aboriginal simulations for the Generations of
Knowledge project.
1
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/about-uon/governance-and-leadership/faculties-and-schools/faculty-of-engineering-andbuilt-environment/school-of-electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/acalci-2015/about 2
http://sct.uab.cat/lsds/content/social-simulation-conference-2014 11
The results of an earlier project on using motion capture as an interface for motion streaming into sportsoriented video games have been finalised by Anton Bogdanovych and Chris Stanton and submitted as a
publication currently in review for The 7th ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive
Computing Systems (EICS 2015)3.
Impact: The Generations project opened an opportunity for a further in-depth large-scale re-enactment of
Aboriginal culture and developing technology preserving Aboriginal knowledge in adequate form.
Aboriginal people have a holistic view of the world and their belonging to the land, encapsulated in the
Aboriginal saying “we belong to the land and have a responsibility to care for that land”. The project
attempted to reconstruct with high level of authenticity what life was like in the community few centuries
ago, using a rich data – geo-spatial data about the campus area, data about the flora and fauna of the area,
motion capture data, recorded from the specific motions of the carriers of the knowledge – the Aboriginal
Elders, and other additional data. In order to achieve authenticity and extend the research work, the project
created a large public database of Aboriginal resources, such as texts, images, videos and references to be
used throughout the project and by any other interested party (available at http://gok.scem.uws.edu.au). The
project outputs are result of the joint work and co-creation with the Aboriginal community, in order to
understand and represent their perspective through the simulation technology. In order to achieve those, first,
we received permission from respective Aboriginal Elders to access their intellectual property and record
their perspectives. Second, we engaged youth from various communities to help us co-create the 3D content
and writing new stories, allowing others to re-live their experiences in the simulated environment. Last, we
raised the appreciation and appropriate attribution of Aboriginal intellectual property within non-aboriginal
population.
Using the co-created simulation, people can learn by playing a game with a carefully crafted educational
plot, which incrementally raises their knowledge about the presented topics. During this experience, each
party is able to re-live the experience from the perspective of the other party, providing an opportunity for
understanding of both points of the view. Exerts from the project results were presented at the annual
Yarramundi Lecture.
Industry and international engagement: During his sabbatical visit to Crytek, Anton Bogdanovych has
elicited substantial creative expertise from well-known game producers to develop the story line and concept
documents that aim at translating both simulations - “The City of Uruk” and “The Generations of
Knowledge”, into interactive educational video games. During his visit in IIIA Spain, Anton has also
participated in the development of a European grant application aimed at building advanced techniques for
preserving and simulating ancient cultures.
Plans for 2015: We plan on expanding the “Generations of Knowledge” simulation and proceed with broad
evaluation of the approach, respective methodology and technology with voluntary participants. We will be
measuring several aspects, including the believability of the performance of virtual agents and the level of
learning through the immersion and interaction with them. We plan to publish these results in the Applied AI
journal and the Journal of Digital Humanities.
Human-Robot Interaction
The Human-Robot Interaction stream focused on intelligent robot behaviour and evaluation of this behaviour
through human perception.
Theoretical work: In 2014, Omar Mubin in collaboration with the HIT Lab NZ and Catherine Stevens,
conducted a pilot study that aimed to understand the human perception of (un)predictable behaviour
manipulated across robot embodiment. A paper emerging from the study and discussing its results is under
review.
3
http://eics2015.org/ 12
Emerging from the project Robots in Meetings, an article co-authored by Omar Mubin, Simeon Simoff,
Chris Stanton and Kate Stevens was presented at the 23-rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and
Human Interactive Communication (IEEE RO-MAN 2014)4. Ongoing research in the project is expected to
explore and implement more nuanced and intelligent robot behaviour to facilitate human robot collaborative
scenarios. Furthermore, an article co-authored with Computer Science Honours Student Joshua Henderson
on Speech Recognition in Human Robot Interaction was also presented at IEEE RO-MAN 2014.
Technology development and experimentation: Chris Stanton and Kate Stevens co-supervised a group of five
"Empirical Research Project" fourth year psychology students. This work examined how eye gaze impacts
participant's likelihood of trusting a humanoid robot. Using a between subjects design, a total of 53
participants were exposed to one of three experimental conditions: a robot with averted gaze; a robot, which
only gazed at participants when it disagreed with them; and a robot, which continually gazed (stared) at
participants. Participants were found to trust the robot the least in the staring condition. Results of this study
will be published in 2015.
Chris Stanton and Kate Stevens co-supervised a psychology honours student (Christopher Deligianis). For
Christopher Deligianis's honours thesis, the team conducted two empirical experimental evaluations with
human subjects, which investigated whether social identity theory (intergroup bias) can impact whether
participants are more likely to trust a humanoid robot. The experiments employed the "minimal group
paradigm", which involves placing participants into groups that are trivial in nature. In this case, participants
were told they were either in the "computer group" (the out-group) or the "robot group" (the in-group). In the
first experiment, the work demonstrated that intergroup bias affected participants approach behaviour
towards the robot, with in-group participants sitting closer to the robot. In the second experiment, the work
demonstrated that robot movement also impacts participants approach behaviour, with participants sitting
further away from a motionless robot in comparison to a robot with "humanlike" movements. The results of
these experiments have been submitted to Journal of Human Robot Interaction and are currently under
review.
Impact: Omar Mubin has been extensively involved in a joint project with researchers from Chalmers
University Sweden and HIT Lab NZ that aims to ascertain the contradiction between fictional and real
robots. The team argues that although it may be difficult to fully untangle fiction from HRI design, it is more
appropriate to render the process of HRI design to be intentional and conscious. An initial paper outlining the
work was presented at the Sixth International Conference on Social Robotics, 27th to 29th October 2014,
Sydney5. A second paper, which presents the results of determining human perception of the two types of
robots by analysing comments on YouTube videos, is under review.
Industry and international engagement: Chris Stanton and Simeon Simoff have formed an industry
partnership with Jensen's Tennis, Tennis NSW, Tennis Australia, and Coroware Robotics. The aim of this
partnership is to develop autonomous robots to assist with tennis court maintenance, performing roles such
as court cleaning. Jensen's tennis in 2014 have also provided industry experience to UWS computer science
students, providing them with experience in developing a system for automating court hiring and access
(using electronic gate locking systems). One of these graduated students is now working for Jensen's tennis
in a full-time capacity.
Plans for 2015: Late in 2014, the UWS Research, Engagement and Innovation (REDI) office provided
$25,000 to assist with seeding this project. Jensen's Tennis and Tennis Australia are also providing another
$25,000, thus providing a pool of $50,000 to be spent in 2015 on seeding this project. Furthermore,
Coroware Robotics USA are purpose-building a custom robot for this project. In collaboration with
researchers from Chalmers University Sweden and University of Gothenburg, Omar Mubin has initiated a
project that aims to study the cross-cultural implications of Human Robot Interaction. The first expected
output of the project is a critical review of cross-cultural studies in HRI.
4
5
http://rehabilitationrobotics.net/ro-man14/ http://icsr2014.org/ 13
Human-Information Interaction
The Human-Information Interaction stream remained focused on information visualisation, human
interaction with information visualisations and visual information inquiry, addressing needs for development
of visual analytics technologies.
Theoretical work: In the theoretical project on “Visualisation and interaction techniques for large relational
structures and multi-dimensional data”, Quang Vinh Nguyen and Simeon Simoff in collaboration with the
external researchers Associate Professor. Mao Lin Huang (UTS) and Professor Kang Zhang (UTD6), have
developed a number of novel algorithms and techniques. These research outputs have been published in a
book chapter, a journal article and 3 conference papers.
Technology development and experimentation: The honours student Jesse Tran (co-supervised by Quang
Vinh Nguyen and Simeon Simoff) further developed elements of this research work, focusing on visualising
live social network data, e.g. Twitter, in order to extract certain information and knowledge from it (in this
case the contextual meaning of the tags used in Twitter). The student completed with 1st class Honours. His
work was published by LNCS at the 10th International Symposium on Visual Computing, December 8-10,
2014, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Jesse has started his PhD study in 2015 on this topic. The Psychology
student Carrissa Sanderson, supervised by Quang Vinh Nguyen, was involved on the evaluation of the
developed visualisations. A journal article is being drafted for this study.
Impact: In the ongoing project “Visual Analytics for Medical Data”, by Dr Quang Vinh Nguyen and
Professor Simeon Simoff, in collaboration with Associate Professor Daniel Catchpoole (Westmead
Children's Hospital) and Associate Professor Paul Kennedy (UTS), the project has successfully developed a
new visual analytics prototype for genomic and biomedical data. The work was published at the Journal on
Genomics and Informatics in 2014. This project was funded by a competitive Big Data, Big Impact Grant
from Cancer Institute of NSW ($60,000, first round) where Dr Nguyen was a chief investigator (CI).
Outcome of the second round larger funding is still pending. A PhD student (Nader Khalifa) joined this
project in 2014 (supervised by Dr Nguyen and Professor Simoff). The thesis extends the project to Unity 3D
in which game engine and intelligent are utilised to the visualisation and visual analytics. A conference
publication (HKMI Jan 2015) also was produced on this preliminary PhD work.
Industry and international engagement: In the project on “Visual Analytics for Population Health and
eHealth” Quang Vinh Nguyen joined Professor Andrew Page, Professor Anthony Maeder and other
researchers from UWS to deliver presentations during the three days research capacity building workshop in
Beijing (funded by the Commonwealth Department of Industry). The workshop was successful with very
positive feedback. Initial work with the SAX Institute was carried out in 2014-2015 on using visualisation
for 45-and-Up data and research grant applications. The honours student Andrew Brunker (co-supervised by
Dr Nguyen and Professor Maeder) joined this research in 2014 on time-based visualisation for user
classification (eHealth). His work was published at a conference and he has been working full-time in
Industry after his Honours study. A successful SCEM Challenge Grant ($9800) was awarded to Dr Nguyen
to develop further this project.
Plans for 2015: There were eight peer-reviewed publications from researchers in this stream in 2014
including one book chapter, two Journal articles, one LNCS paper and four other conference papers). Three
journal articles have been accepted for publications in 2015 in the following journals: IEEE Transactions on
Human Machine Systems, Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, and IEEE Computer Graphics and
Applications. One article was likely to be accepted at Information Sciences Journal (impact factor 3.97).
In 2014, Dr Quang Vinh Nguyen was the Program Chair of the 7th International Symposium on Visual
Information Communication and Interaction (VINCI 2014) and Symposium Chair of International
Symposium on Visual Analytics at the 11th International Conference Computer Graphics, Imaging and
Vision (CGIV 2014). He was a guest editor for special issues at IJSEKE and IJSI journals. He was a team
member of the UWS Learning and Teaching Awards - Excellence in Teaching.
6
University of Texas, Dallas 14
Practical contribution to UWS promotion and engagement effort
In 2014, some of the practical outcomes of the three themes of the HMI program have been demonstrated at
various venues for attracting industry and potential students. These include CEBIT 2014, UWS Open Days,
High School and other promotional events.
15
3.3
Multisensory Processing
In 2014, the MSP area consisted of the following personnel: Professor Chris Davis and Associate Professor
Jeesun Kim, Drs Yatin Mahajan, Greg Zelic; Vincent Aubanel; School-based researchers: Drs Tamara
Watson, John Cass, and Phoebe Bailey. The MSP area had five PhD students, Michael Fitzpatrick, Tim
Paris, Leo Chong, Simone Simonetti and Saya Kawese, and two honours students, Hurryat Faniad and Sonya
Prasad.
Publications
In 2014, researchers from the MSP area contributed to 22 journal Publications; 3 Published peer reviewed
full conference papers and 11 conference presentations (these were given at diverse venues, such as
Interspeech 2014 in Singapore; ICPEAL 2014, Korea; the Australasian Experimental Psychology
Conference, 2014, Brisbane; Speech Prosody, Ireland.
Training, Impact/Outreach
MSP researchers supervised four UWS Intern students on research projects, and delivered two public talks to
the members of Hurstville Computer Senior club (July 2014 and September 2014).
Honours/Awards
Associate Professor Kim was an invited keynote speaker at the International Conference on the Processing of
East Asian Languages (ICPEAL). This conference has been held every two years since 1978, and provides
opportunities for researchers to disseminate new research findings, exchange new ideas, develop new
paradigms, and advance the cognitive study of East Asian languages.
Grants
An ARC Discovery grant was awarded to Davis and Kim: "Elderly speech perception in noise".
Researchers from the MARCS Institute, the MSP Area (Professor Davis) and the Speech and Language Area
(Professor Burnham) were part of the successful CRC HEARing renewal bid.
An ESRC grant Professor Valerie Hazan (UCL, UK), Associate Professor Kim and Professor Chris Davis
application “Speech communication in older adults: an acoustic, articulatory and perceptual investigation”.
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Grant (DFG) Mixdorff, H. & Kim, J. "Analysis and modeling of
auditory-Visual prosody in dialogs"
John Templeton Foundation To J. Cass & E. Van der Burg (USyd) “Evolution of human time perception”.
16
3.4
Music Cognition and Action
Dr Jennifer MacRitchie joined the Music Cognition and Action (MCA) research program in September 2014,
commencing as a Research Lecturer in Music Perception and Cognition. With the support of a CAPES
postdoctoral fellowship, Dr Fatima Wachowicz from Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil arrived in
August to spend 12 months on a research project on dance and cognitive science. During 2014, Peter Keller
was the Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor in the Department of Music at Durham University in the UK.
PhD candidates in the MCA research program Josephine Terry and Staci Vicary graduated in April and
December, respectively. PhD candidate Peta Mills received the UWS University Medal for Psychology
Honours (2013). Incoming PhD candidates to the MCA program in 2014 were Steffen Herff, Anita Paas,
Tanya Pritchard and Yvonne Leung. At the undergraduate level, MCA researchers supervised: three Intern
students: Rose Berdebes, Michael Muir, Jose Pena; four psychology students, Velimir Kolundzic, Lisa
McCarthy (Hons I), Zoe Mitsopoulos (Hons I), Alexandra Saunders; a 4th year psychology group project; and
a work experience student, Marcel Hutchings.
MCA research findings published in 2014 include:
•
•
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•
•
•
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•
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the demonstration of a causal role of motor simulation processes supporting inter-personal
coordination in joint action (by combining repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation methods with
a musical paradigm) (Novembre, et al.);
discovering that individuals with an internal locus of control (who attribute the cause of events to
their own actions) engage in less temporal adaptation than individuals with an external locus of
control (attribute events to external factors); the neural correlates of these different strategies were
also identified (Fairhurst, Janata & Keller);
demonstrating the influence of social anxiety disorder on interpersonal coordination and especially
leading behaviours (Varlet et al.);
showing how the occurrence and stability of interpersonal coordination is mediated by the movement
kinematics of the actors (Varlet et al.);
the first direct demonstration of the ability of professional improvisers to fulfil compositional
referents in a manner which is computationally detectable. (Dean, Bailes, & Drummond);
evidence of roles for structure, performer (or computational) agency, and listener engagement in
perception of affect in music (Olsen, Bailes, Dean);
showing how to enhance likeability! (Launay, Dean & Bailes);
reporting that audience members with cochlear implants (CIs), hearing aids and listeners with
normal hearing respond positively to a concert of music composed specifically for CIs.
Spatialization and rhythm were features of interest; music familiarity also plays a role (Schubert,
Marozeau, Stevens & Innes-Brown);
discovering that when learning a novel dance-pop routine, novice dancers reproduce the dance from
memory most accurately when the dance has been learned to the rhythm track, rather than “full”
music – music overloads novice dancers! (Betteridge, Stevens & Bailes);
showing that, as in perception, posture and motion can be dissociated in visual short-term memory
(Vicary & Stevens);
demonstrating that the asymmetry of gait movement in Parkinson's sufferers is such that audio
cueing can usefully be provided in an asymmetric fashion too, to aid their movements. (Dean
amongst a team from NEURA and U of Sydney).
Members of the MCA research program contributed invited chapters to books in 2014 published by Oxford
University Press and Ashgate. Dean, Keller, Olsen and Stevens each contributed invited entries to Music in
the Social and Behavioural Sciences: An Encyclopedia (Sage).
All researchers in MCA contribute as editors and reviewers. Jennifer MacRitchie is an Associate Editor of
the new specialty section Performance Science in Frontiers in Psychology. Peter Keller is associate editor
for Royal Society Open Science. Roger Dean is founding co-editor of soundsRite and an editor of Critical
Studies in Improvisation. Nigel Nettheim is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Music and Meaning.
17
Kate Stevens is an editor of Memory Studies and associate editor of Music Perception. She edited a two-part
special issue of Acoustics Australia on Auditory Perception: Speech and Music (12 articles) and, with Jessica
Phillips Silver and Petri Toiviainen, edited an invited Research Topic on “Neuroentrainment” for Frontiers
in Human Neuroscience (> 23,000 views).
In addition to the above journals, MCA researchers reviewed more than 80 manuscripts for journals
including: Biological Psychology, Brain and Cognition, Cognitive Neuroscience, Consciousness &
Cognition, Cortex, Developmental Psychology, Experimental Brain Research, Frontiers in Auditory
Cognitive Neuroscience, Frontiers in Cognitive Science, Frontiers in Emotion Science, Frontiers in Human
Neuroscience, Frontiers in Performance Science, Hearing Research, International Journal of Audiology,
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, Journal of Mathematics and Music, Journal of Motor
Behaviour, Journal of New Music Research, Leonardo, Music Perception, Musicae Scientiae, NeuroImage,
Perception, PLOS One; Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, Quarterly Journal of Experimental
Psychology, Scientific Report, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and Timing and Time
Perception. MCA members also reviewed various national and international grant applications and abstracts
and papers for international conferences.
The MCA writing and research group, convened by doctoral candidate Peta Mills, met 25 times during 2014
to discuss draft journal manuscripts, thesis chapter and the design of new experiments. On 10 March 2014
and coinciding with two international research visitors, we held a daylong MCA Symposium (32 papers / 10
from UWS student or staff researchers). The symposium culminated in a public lecture on Music Cognition
in Healthy Ageing delivered by Professor Andrea Halpern, Bucknell University, USA.
During 2014, MCA researchers were invited to give presentations at: Current Topics in Loudness Workshop,
National Institute of Applied Sciences, Lyon, France; 13th International Conference on Music Perception
and Cognition, Seoul, South Korea; Labodanse, Paris; Symposium on Dance and Cognitive Science,
University of Kent at Canterbury, UK; and colloquia at: University of Manchester, UK; University of
Birmingham, UK; Newcastle University, UK; University of Edinburgh, UK; Central European University,
Budapest, Hungary; Durham University, UK; Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music &
Montreal Neurological Institute, Montreal, Canada; and Macquarie University. A total of three invited public
lectures were given during 2014 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Music on the Mind series at
the Melbourne Recital Hall.
MCA research was presented at: Conference of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Boston, USA; The
Neurosciences and Music V, Dijon, France; International Workshop on Movement and Computing (MOCO):
Intersecting Art, Meaning, Cognition, Technology, IRCAM, Paris, France; 13th International Conference on
Music Perception and Cognition, Seoul, South Korea; Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience, Erasmus Mundus,
Leipzig, Germany; Electronic Literature Organisation Conference, Milwaukee, USA; International
Conference on Auditory Display, New York, USA; International Symposium on Attentional Processes and
Implicit Skill Acquisition in Music, Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg, Delmenhorst, Germany; Conference of the
Australasian Experimental Psychology Society, University of Queensland; and 12th International
Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Brisbane.
Visitors to the MCA group during 2014 included: Professor Andrea Halpern, Bucknell University, USA;
Professor Jane Ginsborg, Royal Northern College of Music, UK; Dr Daniela Sammler, Max Planck Institute
for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Mr Felix Haiduk, University of Leipzig,
Germany; Dr Birgitta Burger, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland; Ms Lauren Hadley, University of Edinburgh,
UK; Mr Niels Hansen, Aarhus University, Denmark; Dr Neil Todd, University of Manchester, UK; Professor
Adrian North, Curtin University; Associate Professor Neil McLachlan, University of Melbourne; Dr Juanita
Todd, University of Newcastle; and Professor Blake Johnson, Macquarie University.
Creative work: The ABC commissioned and broadcast on SoundProof a work of text and sound, Bird
Migrants from Hazel Smith (Writing and Society) and Roger Dean. Several new media works from their
collaboration were published in peer-reviewed and peer-curated international journal issues, such as Cordite
(Australia), Drunken Boat (USA) and others. Dean's creative ensemble austraLYSIS made and presented
new work, and his music and new work was performed or presented in events in Australia, Brazil, UK, and
18
USA as well as broadcast on radio internationally. Andy Milne’s creative work during included
performances at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music of Serial Meantimes (Milne, Dean) exploring
algorithmic rhythm generation, and Red-backed Fairy-wren (Milne), originally composed for the Bimblebox
music eco-project, exploring microtonal tunings. Milne’s Dynamic Tonality software - to facilitate
composition and performance of microtonal music - was released and updated on
www.dynamictonality.com. Tanya Voges’ contemporary dance residency at Critical Path (Australia Council)
in February and April included Kate Stevens as advisor on human memory.
Board Membership: Kate Stevens is a member of the Advisory Board of the SSHRC-MRI Canada
international research network Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing. She is a member of the
Australian Music& Psychology Society (AMPS) Inc. executive and MCA at MARCS was successful in 2014
in its bid to host the 2nd National Conference of the Australian Music & Psychology Society at UWS
(Parramatta CBD campus & Parramatta South campus) December 7-9, 2015.
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3.5
Speech and Language
In 2014, two academic appointments were made in Speech and Language; Dr Mark Antoniou was appointed
to a postdoctoral position with Professor Anne Cutler (and soon thereafter was awarded an ARC Discovery
Early Career Researcher Award, DECRA); and Dr Marina Kalashnikova was appointed to the position of
Researcher in Infant Studies and MARCS BabyLab Leader. In addition, in late 2014 we interviewed for a
position in Speech Production and Speech Articulation and we eagerly await the results of that process. Four
new Research Assistants were appointed, all of who are working in the area of Infant Studies. They are
Samra Alispahic who is working with Paola Escudero, and also with Denis Burnham and Marina
Kalashikova; Candice Michael, who is working at the new MARCS/SSAP BabyLab at Kingswood, Scott
O'Loughlin, with Denis Burnham and Marina Kalashikova, and Karen Mulak working with Paola Escudero.
Two new students in Speech and Language in 2014 are Richard Yanaky and Jia Ying, both being supervised
by Jason Shaw.
Three Speech & Language researchers received special honours. Professor Catherine Best was appointed
as the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) Distinguished Lecturer for the 2014-2015
term; Professor Anne Cutler was awarded the 2014 International Speech Communication Association
(ISCA) Medal for Scientific Achievement and accordingly gave the Opening Address at Interspeech in
Singapore, 2014; and Dr Paola Escudero was awarded the UWS Researcher of the Year, for her first class
research output and impact.
In 2014, there has been mounting readiness (and excitement) for two large projects: the ARC Centre of
Excellence (CoE) in the Dynamics of Language, and the HEARing CRC. The Dynamics of Language will
run from 2014 to 2021 and involves four Universities, lead institution ANU, the University of Melbourne,
the University of Queensland, and UWS. Speech & Language researchers Professor Cutler, Associate
Professor Escudero, and Associate Professor Jones are Chief Investigators on the project and Professor
Burnham an Associate Investigator. Professor Cutler is Leader of the Language Processing research
program, Associate Professors Escudero and Jones and Professor Burnham are members of the Language
Learning program, and in the two technological innovation programs Professor Burnham and Associate
Professor Jones are in the Research Technologies thread and the Documentation and Archiving thread.
The HEARing Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) will run from 2014 to 2019 and involves 23 different
organisations. This is an extension of previous CRC funding but it is the first time that MARCS Institute,
UWS has been involved. The MARCS involvement is twofold: Professor Chris Davis, Leader of the
MARCS Multisensory Processing will be involved in studies of hearing and auditory attention in the elderly,
and Speech & Language researchers, Professor Burnham and Dr Kalashnikova will be involved in studies of
speech perception by and speech input to young hearing and hearing impaired infants and their subsequent
language development. Many of the existing staff and new staff to be involved in the CRC and the CoE will
be housed in a dedicated space believed to be in Building 3 on Bankstown campus.
There are four main emphases in the Speech and Language research program: Speech Perception, Infant
Studies, Speech Production, and Corpus Studies. These are discussed in turn.
3.1.1. Speech Perception
A major theme in the speech perception studies is cross-language speech perception. By presenting
participants who speak a particular native language with speech sounds peculiar to another language and
measuring the difficulties they do or do not have with these, we can determine the psycholinguistic processes
that have developed to optimise native language speech perception and language development in both first
and second language learning. By conducting such studies with speech sounds from a range of languages and
participants from infancy to adulthood across a range of language backgrounds, we can pinpoint the loci of
speech perception, speech segmentation, word learning, and later language skills such as literacy. In this way
we can chart normal and identify delayed or deficient linguistic development in particular languages, with
implications for both monolingual and bi- and multilingual development.
Personnel in the Speech Perception stream (Antoniou, Best, Burnham, Cutler, Escudero, Jones, Kasisopa,
Peter, Tyler, continued to publish and supervise students. At the Interspeech Conference in September in
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Singapore, MARCS speech perception personnel made an impressive showing, kicked off, of course, by
ISCA Medallist, Cutler’s superb Keynote Address.
In 2014, Professor Cathi Best continued work on her cross-language studies under the guiding principles of
her internationally acclaimed Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM), and began work on her new UWS
Partnership grant with Bruno Di Biase, Mario Vayra and Cinzia Avesani on ‘Tracing Regional Italian Roots
in the Speech of Italian-Australians’. Professor Cutler, building upon the 2013 publication of her ‘Native
Listening’ book, began work on her new ARC Discovery grant, ‘Explaining the native-language listening
advantage by charting neural response and perceptual adaptation across languages – but within individuals’.
Associate Professor Caroline Jones was successful in her application for an ARC Linkage grant in which she
is extending her Future Fellowship program to work on ‘Learning to Talk, Talking to Learn: Effects of an
early childhood language program in remote Northern Territory indigenous communities’ with MARCS
members Dr Paola Escudero and Dr Karen Mattock, and also Mridula Sharma, Lee Rosas, Penny Everitt,
Mele Taumoepeau, Katherine Demuth, Catherine McMahon, Iain Spiers, Raelene Wing, and Suzanne
Demosthenous. Associate Professor Escudero and Dr Karen Mulak continue their work on vowel perception
in infants, children and adults, and zebra finches; Dr Michael Tyler continues work on cross-language speech
perception with his collaborators and students; and Professor Burnham and Dr Benjawan Kasisopa continues
work on their cross-language studies, especially in lexical tone languages.
3.1.2. Infant Studies: MARCS BabyLab
2014 was a year of growth and development in the MARCS BabyLab.
MARCS/SSAP BabyLab at Kingswood: Following initial planning sessions between MARCS Director and
erstwhile BabyLab Leader, Professor Denis Burnham, and School of Social Sciences and Psychology
(SSAP) Dean, Professor Kevin Dunn, work got underway to organise the practicalities of setting up a
MARCS/SSAP BabyLab on the Kingswood campus of UWS, drawing on the talents of Institute Manager,
Darlene Williams, Technical Team Leader, Colin Schoknecht, BabyLab Coordinator, Rachel Lee,
Technology Solutions Analyst, Steven Fazio, BabyLab researcher, Dr Marina Kalashnikova, and SSAP
Manager Melissa Maucort, Business Development Manager, Jacqueline Clements, Research and Finance
Coordinator, Vicki Fox, Technical and Facilities Manager, Brett Marriage, BabyLab researcher, Dr Karen
Mattock, and Foundational Processes of Behaviour Research Concentration Leader, Dr Gabrielle
Weidemann. Ms Candice Michael was appointed as a Research Assistant responsible for MARCS research
studies at Kingswood and a postdoctoral position in Infant Studies (SSAP) will be advertised in 2015. The
MARCS/SSAP BabyLab at Kingswood opened its doors and began testing in late 2014, and an official
opening is planned for 2015.
MARCS BabyLab Leader: In November 2015, Dr Marina Kalashnikova was appointed to a five-year position
of Researcher in Infant Studies and officially took over Leadership of the MARCS BabyLab complex. In
addition to these duties, Marina will continue her work on the ‘Seeds of Literacy’ project with infants at risk
for dyslexia, and will also be involved in development of protocols and organisation of the infant studies in
the five-year HEARing Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) project.
Research: Dr Christine Kitamura and Dr Christa Lam-Cassettari, in collaboration with Dr Iris-Corinna
Schwarz from Stockholm University, were successful in securing a Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg
Foundation research grant on ‘The impact of vocal emotion on early word learning: Behavioural and neural
responses to parental IDS in Swedish and Australian English’. Work continues on various BabyLab research
projects being conducted by Professor Best, Dr Escudero, Professor Burnham, Dr Kalashnikova, Dr
Varghese Peter, Dr Christine Kitamura, Dr Karen Mattock, Dr Rachel Robbins, Dr Michael Tyler, and Dr
Gabrielle Weidemann and their assistants and HDR students. In 2014, there were nine research studies
conducted which were funded by five external grants. BabyLab researchers published 13 publications, two
conference proceedings, and one book chapter.
Engagement: In addition to the research in the BabyLab, BabyLab Leader Dr Marina Kalashnikova and
BabyLab Coordinator Rachel Lee organised and co-ordinated MARCS BabyLab personnel to represent the
BabyLab, MARCS and UWS at various academic, community and engagement activities: the Miller
Community Fun Day at Edwin Wheeler Oval in Sadlier; the Learning Difference Convention; with the
School of Social Sciences and Psychology and the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics at
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the UWS Open Day; the Sydney Baby and Toddler Show; and the 2014 Pregnancy, Babies and Children’s
Expo. These community events recruited 309 new infant participants by parental sign up.
MARCS BabyLab researchers were also interviewed and provided expert commentary to a number of
Australian and international media outlets. These outlets included Channel 7 News, SBS TV, ABC PM, ABC
Online, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Ninemsn, and the Early Educator Magazine. BabyLab
researchers also had the opportunity to directly communicate the outcomes of their studies to parents via a
brand new BabyLab website (BabyLab.com.au), launched in May, as well as social media accounts on
Facebook and Twitter, and an all-new quarterly newsletter.
The MARCS BabyLab continues to fulfil its dual function of conducting excellent research (and publishing,
supervising interns, honours students, Masters and PhD students, and winning research grants), and
community engagement and communication of findings via social and traditional media. These activities are
set to continue and increase with the 2014 opening of the MARCS/SSAP BabyLab at Kingswood, and with
plans for further BabyLabs, e.g., on Westmead campus.
3.1.3 Speech Production and the Articulation Studies
In the AHAA (Analysis of Human Articulate Activities) Lab, Leader Best, along with Davis,
Shaw, Mailhammer, Derrick, Proctor (now at Macquarie University), Kroos (now at Curtin University), and
Bundgaard-Nielsen (now at La Trobe and MARCS adjunct) study speech production using phonetic,
phonological and psycholinguistic techniques. The lab was active in 2014 collecting new data, analysing data
collected in 2012 and 2013, publishing papers, presenting research at international conferences, training
HDR students, developing international collaborations, and engaging with the local and university
community. The lab has truly begun to establish itself as a regional leader in articulatory studies in
Australasia and, in particular, in electromagnetic articulography (EMA) and ultrasound research on speech
articulation, as well as in investigations of the articulatory bases for both speech perception and phonological
organisation in languages.
Conferences: The lab made impressive showings at relevant international conferences: at the International
Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP) at Cologne University in May there were four presentations on EMA
and/or Vicon findings; and at biennial international Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon) meeting in Tokyo,
Japan in July there were three presentations on articulatory processing in adults and infants.
Data: Data processing and analysis proceeded on various studies as follows: 1) anticipatory articulator
motion in masked-prime naming (Davis, Shaw, Proctor); 2) articulatory kinematics in Australian and
American vowels (Shaw); 3) articulatory coordination of tongue tip and body in Australian and American
English coronal consonants [d, th, j] (Best, Derrick); 4) EMA/perceptual study examining lexical tone
production by Mandarin speakers (Shaw w/ visitor Wei-rong Chen of Taiwan, and Derrick and Proctor); 5)
an EMA and UltraSound study to examine English flaps (Derrick), including the design of a specialised
UltraSound probe-holder which is being used at MARCS and in an ongoing study by Derrick at the MARCS
sister institution and co-employer New Zealand Institute for Language, Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB) and
will be used in 2015 in the field in collaborations with Dr Robert Mailhammer on Mwang and Iwaidja; and
6) a ‘first’, a study run at Westmead with co-registered tongue/lip/jaw motion (using Wave and EMA) and
jaw muscle activity (EMG) during speaking vs. chewing (Kroos, Derrick, Best w/ Murray (USyd], and
Vatikiotis Bateson (UBC).
MARCS and the New Zealand Institute for Language, Brain and Behaviour: Postdoctoral fellow, Dr Derrick,
successfully completed two grants, one awarded by the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and
Employment (MBIE) for the project ‘Aero-Tactile Enhancement of Speech Perception’ and the second by
the Royal Society of New Zealand for the project ‘Clarity vs. efficiency in speech’. He is in the process of
patenting the device he and a NZILBB Technical Officer developed for the MBIE grant, and has submitted a
phase two MBIE grant proposal to develop applications of the device. In late 2014 Dr Derrick was successful
in securing a continuing position with the NZILBB. At the 2014 Australasian International Speech Science
and Technology Conference, which was held in Christchurch, the hometown of the NZILBB, there was a
farewell for Donald, and a pledge to continue MARCS-NZILBB collaborations into the future across the
Tasman.
Students and Visitors: Three new PhD students and one postdoctoral researcher received training at AHAA
lab in Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA methods in 2014 (S&L PhD students: Jia Ying and Sayantan
(Sam) Mandal, and Saya Kawase; along with MSP postdoctoral researcher Gregory Zelic). Ying’s PhD
22
project will be conducted entirely in the AHAA lab and pilot data for her project was collected in 2014.
Mandal successfully upgraded from MA-Research to PhD in 2014, and one piece of his PhD project will be
an EMA study in AHAA Lab in March-April 2015. Based on his AHAA training in 2014, Zelic is
supervising on Honours student in 2015 who will be conducting an EMA/Vicon study here.
The lab supported a MARCS intern in 2014 (Stacey Sherwood), who contributed to data analysis and testing,
in the context of this project and was awarded Outstanding UWS intern. Arwen Blackwood Ximenes was
recruited to work on the second experiment as part of a Master’s (research) thesis, starting in 2015. The Lab
hosted three international visitors, Dr Jason Brown (University of Auckland); Professor Yueh-Chin Chang
(National Tsing Hua University) and Professor Feng-Fan Hsieh (National Tsing Hua University), who
visited (self-funded) to learn about our EMA methods and develop future collaborations.
Engagement: The lab also represented MARCS to the local community, providing a demonstration,
coordinated by Dr Shaw, of MARCS speech production equipment as a part of the Koori Bridge program for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school children.
Into 2015: Dr Shaw and Professor Best continued to develop AHAA as a well-organised and productive lab:
they continue to provide training opportunities and workshops on AHAA Lab techniques, to refine the
physical lab set-up to be more effective, to create and refine lab protocols for EMA and US procedures, and
program crucial new EMA data-processing routines, in order to provide set protocols that will ensure the
adoption of standard procedures, and facilitate and encourage collaboration across and beyond UWS. In
2015, a Research Lecturer in Speech Production Research will join the AHAA Speech and Language team
and we look forward to further development of research across the range of areas encompassed by the
AHAA lab.
3.1.4 Corpus Studies
The Big ASC (AusTalk):
The Big ASC (Australian Speech Corpus) project, funded by an ARC LIEF Grant,
with Professor Burnham as Lead CI, and UWS as the lead institution, has almost
reached its goal of collecting three hours of audio-visual speech data from 1000
Australian English speakers from various sites around Australia. The AusTalk
corpus (https://austalk.edu.au/) provides an extensible database for projects
charting the extent, degree, and details of social, regional and ethno-cultural
variations in Australian English, and has established the infrastructure for followon projects. Data collection is completed at 13 of the 15 sites, with 798 speakers
recorded across QLD, ACT, SA, TAS, WA, NSW and VIC, and the data collection in NT is expected to be
completed in June 2015. The data already recorded (24TB) has been uploaded onto the AusTalk server
where it is available to users. The license agreement for data access to researchers outside the project is in
place. A second consent is being sought from participants to broaden access to the data. Manual and
automated annotation of the data, including transcription, has been completed at Macquarie University.
Research projects using the data already collected are under way and the infrastructure is also being used for
new collections. The AusTalk corpus has now been incorporated into the Alveo Virtual (see below).
Alveo, a Virtual Laboratory for Human Communication Science:
Alveo (http://alveo.edu.au/) is a multi-institutional virtual laboratory for human
communication science encompassing speech science, speech technology, computer
science, language technology, behavioural science and psychology, linguistics, music
science, phonetics, phonology, and sonics and acoustics. Alveo is very ably managed by
Project Manager, Dr Dominique Estival, and led by CI Professor Denis Burnham with
significant input from Macquarie University via Alveo Product Owner, Associate Steve
Cassidy and personnel from the other participating institutions. Alveo provides a new
environment for research, facilitating access by the Australian and international Human
Communication Science communities to large datasets and various tools by which to analyse these, and
affords new tool-corpus combinations, and thus new emergent research output (projects, grant funding,
doctoral theses, and publications).
On July 1, 2014, Alveo (previously known as HSCvLab), funded by a Commonwealth of Australia National
eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) virtual laboratory project, was launched by NSW
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Chief Scientist and Engineer, Professor Mary O’Kane, UWS Vice-Chancellor, Professor Barney Glover, and
UWS Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Development), Professor Scott Holmes.
The Alveo project augments and supports recent initiatives in eResearch development at UWS and works
closely with the UWS eResearch team and with the UWS eResearch Steering Committee. Following the
launch of Alveo and the completion of direct NeCTAR funding, Alveo will now enter a further 2-year (July
2014 – June 2016) Phase II of development funded by UWS and partners, Macquarie University, the ANU,
Flinders University, RMIT University, LaTrobe University, Universities of Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney,
Tasmania, New South Wales, Western Australia, New England, NICTA (National ICT Australia), ASSTA
(Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association), AusNC (Australian National Corpus), and the
software company, Intersect, as the development partner.
In Alveo Phase II new tools and datasets will be added in response to engagement with project stakeholders
and the research community, and there will be an extensive program of promotion of uptake UWS. In this
phase there is also cross-virtual lab funding available in early 2015 from NeCTAR for Data Movement, User
Support, Research Collaboration, Workflow Platforms, and facilitation of a link with another virtual lab,
HUNI. We will take full advantage of these. In addition, we look forward to working with UWS, the lead
institution on the Alveo project, to maintain and develop Alveo as a UWS initiative and as a valuable
resource for UWS and Australian research in human communication science.
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4. Year in Review
4.1
People
Notable new appointments at the MARCS Institute during 2014 include:
• Dr Mark Antoniou, Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Speech and Language)
• Dr Jennifer MacRitchie, Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Music Cognition and Action)
• Dr Josephine Terry, Research Assistant (Music Cognition and Action)
• Mr Ross Catanzariti, Web and Communications Officer
• Mr Andrew Wabnitz, Technical Officer (Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience)
• Ms Candice Michael, Research Assistant (MARCS BabyLab)
4.2
Higher Degree Research Students
Gregory Cohen spent most of 2014 at University Pierre and Marie Curie (UPMC) in France as part of a
cotutelle agreement between the two institutions. He worked with Dr Ryad Benosman. During his time at
UPMC, Gregory continued with his PhD project that explores the use of neuromorphic principles and spikebased computation as an adaptive, scalable and low-power control system for a high-speed application. He
also investigated spike-based sensor fusion techniques as neuromorphic approach to processing data loosely
based on the area of the human brain that is responsible for attention-based orientation.
11 new HDR students commenced in 2014: Saeed Afshar, Anne Dwyer, Steffen Herff, Waiel Jibrail, Saya
Kawase, Anita Paas, Tanya Pritchard, Nadi Sadr, Simone Simonetti, Richard Yanaky and Jia Ying.
HDR Student Valeria Peretokina accepting her
award from Professor Vaughan Macefield at the
MARCS 3 minute thesis final in August 2014. Valeria
went on to jointly win the people’s choice award at
the UWS 3 minute thesis final in September 2014.
A number of our HDR candidates presented at various conferences both nationally and internationally
including the Experimental Psychology Conference (EPC) in Brisbane, I, European Conference on Visual
Perception (ECVP) in Serbia, Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Workshop in USA, Sensory for
Neuroscience Conference in USA, Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience (NeuroEng) in
Adelaide, International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) in Melbourne, International
Conference of Cognitive Neuroscience in Brisbane, Engineering in Medical and Biological Society (EMBC
IEEE) in USA, Computers in Cardiology conference in USA, Aspects of Autism Conference in Sydney,
International Committee for the Coordination and Standardisation of Speech Database and Assessment
Techniques (COCOSDA) in Thailand and Speech, Science and Technology Conference in New Zealand.
Students also took part in workshops in statistical methods and programming, fMRI and MatLab.
4.3
Events and Community Engagement
The MARCS Institute was involved in various events and community engagement activities in 2014. Below
is a summary of the major events.
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Music Cognition and Action (MCA) Symposium – March
MARCS hosted a Music Cognition and Action Symposium at our Bankstown labs. The event brought
together research students and staff to discuss work in progress in all aspects of music, sonics and human
movement. 30 presentations were made (20 from external institutions, eight from MARCS, two from UWS)
along with two keynote presentations that included a public lecture with cognitive scientist Professor Andrea
Halpern. Professor Halpern discussed how music can be used to gauge a person's brain function as they grow
older.
Pregnancy, Babies & Children’s Expo - May
MARCS BabyLab exhibited at the 2014 Pregnancy, Babies & Children’s Expo in Sydney. The BabyLab
stand included information on current research programs, the ability for parents to register their child, and
other relevant information regarding the world class BabyLab research facility. BabyLab community events
in 2014 recruited 309 new infant participants by parental sign up.
Australian Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop (ANEW) - June
Professor André van Schaik collaborated with The University of Melbourne and Bionic Vision Australia to
hold a Neuromorphic Engineering workshop in Melbourne. The event brought together 50 members of the
International Neuromorphic Engineering Community, and the Australian Association of Computational
Neuroscientists and Neuromorphic Engineers, to discuss some of the key questions in the field. Of the 50
participants, 25 were from International institutions across eight countries, and 25 were from Australian
institutions, including five from UWS.
Koori Education Carnival - June
MARCS ran activity at the Koori
Education Carnival on UWS Bankstown
campus. Dr Christopher Stanton (pictured
left) demonstrated a Nao robot to year 5 - 8
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
students using speech recognition, face
tracking and audio localisation abilities.
Alveo launch - July
Professor Denis Burnham hosted the official launch of Alveo, the multi- institutional virtual laboratory for
human communication science. The event was attended by NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer, Professor Mary
O’Kane, Vice-Chancellor of UWS, Professor Barney Glover, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and
Development) of UWS, Professor Scott Holmes. Dr Dominique Estival, with UWS as the lead organisation,
leads the Alveo project.
Poster Days for Communicating Research on Brain, Behaviour and Development - August
MARCS hosted two Poster Days at UWS on 13 and 15 August 2014, where graduate students and academics
(pictured right) were invited to communicate research around the broad theme of Brain, Behaviour and
Development. Over 60 people registered to present a research poster across both afternoons, and each
participant delivered a one-minute 'pitch' for their poster. More than 50 attendees passed through the posters
on display.
Learning Difference Convention - August
Professor Denis Burnham and Dr Marina Kalashnikova presented at the Learning Difference Convention,
targeted at teachers or parents of children with diagnosed learning difficulties. They discussed research being
conducted at MARCS BabyLab concerning literacy and dyslexia.
26
Hurstville Seniors Computer Club visit – August
Researcher Dr Yatin Mahajan and PhD student Michael Fitzpatrick gave a presentation to local community
group Hurstville Seniors Computer Club. The talk revolved around how progress in computer technology has
benefited their research, an overview of the kind of experiments run in the Multisensory Processing research
program at MARCS, and other brain and behaviour research.
UWS Foundation Council visit - September
MARCS welcomed three members of the UWS Foundation Council - Cameron Clyne (NAB), Katie Page
(Harvey Norman) and Josephine Lam (Australian Fujian Association). Current research projects in areas of
biomedical engineering, speech and language, health and the GWS community were demonstrated.
UWS Open Day - September
Academic staff and students at MARCS engaged with the School of Social Sciences and Psychology (SSAP)
and the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics (SCEM) to showcase current and ongoing
research. Demonstrations included a model of a human cochlea running in real time, an Aldebaran Nao
robot, EEG and MARCS BabyLab.
The Baby and Toddler Show - September
MARCS BabyLab exhibited at The Baby & Toddler Show in Sydney. A number of researchers were present
to provide information on BabyLab research programs, and encourage visitors to register their baby.
BabyLab staff appreciated being given the chance to discuss infant research within the community. BabyLab
community events in 2014 recruited 309 new infant participants by parental sign up.
“Top MARCS” Maths Day - October
Dr Tara Hamilton ran and coordinated a CSIRO “Scientists in Schools” program at Bankstown Girls High
School. Dr Hamilton worked with teachers to put together a maths day based on MARCS Institute’s themes
of brain and behaviour. The event involved 20 students across years 8 - 11.
UWS Research Week - December
Dr Gaetano Gargiulo (pictured right)
showcased
Pneumocardiogram,
a
breakthrough wearable cardiac and
respiratory monitor at a UWS Research
Week event. Representatives from
Greater Western Sydney Sporting clubs
were in attendance, along with members
of the sports manufacturing industry.
Widevision+ Technology Exhibition - December
MARCS demonstrated two electronic devices currently under development in the Biomedical Engineering
and Neuroscience (BENS) group. PhD student Chetan Singh Thakur demonstrated a model of a human
cochlea running in real time, while researcher Dr Paul Breen presented the Pneumocardiogram, a wearable
device that monitors both cardiac and respiration volume in a non-intrusive manner.
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4.4.1: Visiting Researchers
In 2014, we continued to expand our collaborative partnerships with a number international institutions;
welcoming significant international visitors from abroad who took part in research projects, experiments and
presentations at MARCS Research Seminars and workshops.
Visiting Researcher
Home Institution
Dr Jason Brown
Dr Birgitta Burger
Dr Ao Chen
Ms Andrea Geambasu
Ms Lauren Hadley
Mr Felix Haiduk
Professor Andrea Halpern
Mr Niel Hansen
Mr Matthais Heyne
Mr Bart Joosten
Dr Vicky Leong
Ms Jessie Nixon
Dr Chutamanee Onsuwan
Dr Lucrecia Rallo-Fabra
Dr Daniela Sammler
Professor Jorge Serrador
Dr Charturong Tuntibundhit
Ms Mandy Visser
Dr Fatima Wachowicz
Dr Benjamin Weiss
Ms Mengyue Wu
University of Auckland, NZ
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Leiden University, The Netherlands
University of Edinburgh, UK
University of Leipzig, Germany
Bucknell University, USA
Aarhus University, Denmark
University of Canterbury, NZ
Tilburg University, The Netherlands
University of Cambridge, UK
Leiden University, The Netherlands
Thammasat University, Thailand
University of the Balearic Islands, Spain
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany
Department of Veteran Affairs NJ Healthcare System, USA
Thammasat University, Thailand
Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Federal University of Bahaia, Brazil
Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
The University of Melbourne, Australia
4.4.2: Media Events
A number of the MARCS Institute members attracted both local and international media attention during
2014 for their research. Below are some examples:
The Australian (AUS) - March
Professor Kate Stevens was featured in The Australian newspaper. The article discussed her new ARC
linkage project “Thinking Brains and Bodies”, which investigates the delicate interplay between
choreographers and dancers to help pinpoint the processes that drive creative and distributed cognition in
dance.
Early Educator magazine (AUS) - July
Dr Karen Mattock was featured in digital magazine Early Educator, discussing the kind of research that
takes place at MARCS BabyLab, and talking about the role of the early educator in facilitating language
development.
The Daily Telegraph (AUS) - August
Dr Karen Mattock featured in The Daily Telegraph discussing research findings that suggest babies practice
speaking in their minds long before they talk
The Daily Mail (UK) - September
MARCS BabyLab researchers Dr Marina Kalashnikova and Dr Karen Mattock were featured in UK
newspaper The Daily Mail. The pair discussed an ongoing three-year study into children and language.
Ninemsn (AUS) - September
BabyLab researcher Dr Karen Mattock was featured on Ninemsn discussing research showing children as
young as two years instinctively using mathematical concepts such as probability while playing.
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Penrith City Gazette / Penrith Press (AUS) - November
Dr Mark Antoniou featured in both the Penrith City Gazette and the Penrith Press after he was awarded
funding for an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) that will begin in 2015. Dr
Antoniou was awarded $364,536 in funding over three years for his project titled “Cracking the code of
successful language learning”.
Channel 7 News / SBS / ABC (AUS) – December
Dr Paola Escudero was interviewed by a number of Australian media outlets including Channel 7 news, SBS
and ABC. Dr Escudero discussed research that found Australian babies are more likely to understand
Canadians than their own compatriots.
4.4.3: The MARCS Institute Research Seminars
Monday MARCS Meetings (MMMs) and Monday Evening Research Colloquia (MERCs) continued to
promote a lively forum for presentation of research results and intellectual interactions. A list of the MMMs
and WARCs held during 2014 can be found here: http://MARCS.uws.edu.au/events.
Attendance at the weekly Monday MARCS Meetings (MMM) provides opportunities for students and staff
to practise delivering presentations, to hear about research in other areas of MARCS, to hear about relevant
research from external speakers, and to develop the academic skills (e.g., critical questioning, research
presentation skills) expected at this level. Postdoctoral Fellows and Higher Degree Research candidates also
attend fortnightly reading and writing groups that relate to their area of research, e.g., Music Cognition and
Action, Speech and Language, Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience, Multisensory Processing; and the
Monday Evening Research Colloquium (MERC) where presentations are delivered by national and
international visitors and collaborators.
29
5. Management Structure and Operation
Director
The role of the Institute Director incorporates the following areas – Leadership, Advisory, Management,
Delegations, Supervisory, and Representative. The Institute Director provides academic leadership to the
Institute in the area of research activities and output; mentors key academic personnel; facilitates and
supports the academic leadership and supervision of key non-academic personnel in the Institute. The
Institute Director is responsible for research directions and advancement of the Institute in strategically
appropriate directions, strategic planning and policy determination and laboratory areas.
Research Director
The Research Director assists the Director in providing intellectual leadership for the Institute and
coordinates the Institute’s research program. Specific responsibilities include leading the development of the
Institute’s Research Program and coordinating research activities with the Research Program Leaders;
overseeing the allocation and expenditure of the Institute’s research budget; chairing the Institute’s Research
Committee or, where this role is delegated, serving on the Committee ex officio; coordinating applications
for research funding both within UWS and to external funding bodies, and implementing procedures to
enhance their quality; overseeing the development and implementation of productive research partnerships
with other Australian and international universities, and with research users and industry partners; overseeing
the development and integration of the Institute’s research colloquium (WARCS) workshop and conference
program; representing the MARCS Institute on the University Research Committee.
Higher Degree Research Director
The Director, Higher Degree Research (HDR) assists the Director of MARCS in providing leadership for the
Institute. Specific responsibilities will include leading the development of the Institute’s Research Program
as it relates to Higher Degree Research candidates; strategic development of MARCS Research Programs as
it relates to Higher Degree Research candidates; overseeing the allocation and expenditure of the Institute’s
Research Training Scheme (RTS) budget; overseeing and monitoring the progression of higher degree
research students including chairing confirmation of candidature panels; establishing/approving supervisory
panels, recommending approval of supervisory panel changes, etc.; chairing the Institute’s Higher Degree
Research (HDR) Committee or, where this role is delegated, serving on the Committee ex officio; overseeing
the marketing and promotion of HDR program and the recruitment and applications process for Higher
Degree Research Students; representing the MARCS Institute on the University Higher Degree Research
Committee.
Institute Manager
The Institute Manager supports the Institute Director by taking on all higher-level administrative
responsibilities. These include but are not limited to responsibility for the effective and efficient development
and management of a high quality administration and technical infrastructure to support research
development, research management and engagement activities, managing a range of financial, physical and
human resources. The Institute Manager contributes to the strategic planning and development of research
programs, and manages the administration and technical services - including financial, physical and human
resources; student and academic administration; marketing, information technology; research administration;
and community engagement activities. The Institute Manager directly supervises the Technical Facilities
Manager, Executive Officer, Web and Communications Officer, BabyLab Coordinator and two
Administrative Officers.
Technical Facilities Manager
The Technical Facilities Manager reports to the Institute Manager and supervises a multi-disciplinary
technical team – two Technical Officers and a programmer. In addition the position manages a range of
specialised laboratory facilities and equipment for research into infant speech perception; hearing and
language learning; psycholinguistics and auditory processing; human-computer interaction and robotics; face
and articulator movement accompanying speech; music & dance cognition; and physiological measures of
perceptual and cognitive processes.
30
Research Program Leaders
The MARCS Institute has five research areas: i) Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience (BENS), ii)
Human Machine Interaction (HMI), iii) Multisensory Processing (MSP), iv) Music Cognition and Action
(MCA), and v) Speech and Language (S&L). The Research Program Leaders oversee each of their research
areas in line with the Institute strategic direction. They are also responsible for high-level facilities
management, mentoring of early career researchers, providing management and leadership for each program
team, and meeting key performance indicators set by the Institute.
Executive Committee
The Executive Committee comprises the Director, Research Program Leaders, HDR Director, Institute
Manager, Technical Facilities Manager and the Web and Communications Officer. The role of the Executive
Committee is to contribute to the quality and impact of scholarly output of the Institute, especially in the
three key areas of Publications, HDR supervision and completions and external funding. This Committee
also provides academic leadership to the Institute in research activities and output, mentoring academic and
research personnel and contributes to the academic leadership and management of research areas and
MARCS as determined by the Institute Director.
Equipment and Resources Committee
The Equipment and Resources Committee comprises the Institute Director, Institute Manager and the
Technical Facilities Manager. The Committee meets weekly to consider requests for equipment,
programming, resources, staff travel, funding to support participant testing, etc.
Research Committee
The Research Committee comprises the Research Director, HDR Director, a senior research academic, an
early career and mid-career researcher, Institute Manager, Executive Officer and student representative. The
Institute Research Committee assists with the development of high-quality research strategy and practices
and provides advice and comment to the Institute Executive Committee on matters pertaining to the Institute
research plans in line with UWS research plans and policy.
HDR Committee
The HDR Committee comprises the HDR Director, Research Director, a senior research academic, an early
or mid-career academic, Institute Manager, Executive Officer and student representative. The Committee
provides advice to the MARCS Executive regarding academic matters relating to research undertaken by
research and higher degree candidates and considers resource and funding allocations for Higher Degree
Research students.
31
6. Appendices
6.1
Staff list
Director
Program Leader: Speech and Language
Research Director
Program Leader: Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience
HDR Director
Associate Professor of Psychology
Program Leader: Multisensory Processing
Professor in Cognitive Psychology
Program Leader: Human-Machine Interaction
Program Leader: Music Cognition and Action
Research Chair
Research Chair
Research Chair
ARC Future Fellow
ARC Future Fellow
Senior Research Fellow
Senior Research Lecturer
Senior Research Lecturer
Senior Research Lecturer
Researcher in Infant Studies
BabyLab Leader
Research Lecturer
Research Lecturer
Research Lecturer
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Career Development Fellow
Career Development Fellow
Career Development Fellow
Career Development Fellow
Senior Lecturer
Institute Manager
Technical & Facilities Manager
Executive Officer
Web & Communications Officer
Infant Research Laboratory Coordinator
Administrative Officer
Administrative Officer
Database/Application Analyst
Technical Solutions Analyst
Technical Officer
Technical Officer
Technical Officer
Technical Officer
Technical Officer
Research Officer
Professor Denis Burnham
Professor André van Schaik
Associate Professor Jeesun Kim
Professor Chris Davis
Professor Simeon Simoff
Professor Kate Stevens
Professor Catherine Best
Professor Anne Cutler
Professor Roger Dean
Professor Philip de Chazal
Associate Professor Caroline Jones
Associate Professor Peter Keller
Dr Paul Breen
Dr Paola Escudero
Dr Tara Hamilton
Dr Marina Kalashnikova
Dr Jennifer Macritchie
Dr Giacomo Novembre
Dr Manuel Varlet
Dr Mark Antoniou
Dr Vincent Aubanel
Dr Yossi Buskila
Dr Donald Derrick
Dr Dominique Estival
Dr Gaetano Gargiulo
Dr Benjawan Kasisopa
Dr Andrew Milne
Dr Christopher Stanton
Dr Klaus Stiefel
Dr Mark Wang
Dr Yatin Mahajan
Dr Kirk Olsen
Dr Varghese Peter
Dr Gregory Zelic
Dr Jason Shaw
Darlene Williams
Colin Schoknecht
Sonya O’Shanna
Ross Catanzariti
Rachel Lee
Gail Charlton
Karen McConachie
Johnson Chen
Steven Fazio
Dr Donovan Govan
Lei Jing
Dr Shujau Muawiyath
Andrew Wabnitz
James Wright
Dr Sophie Gates
32
Research Officer
Research Officer
Research Officer
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
6.2
Dr Christa Lam-Cassettari
Dr Karen Mulak
Amanda Reid
Maria Christou
Michelle Pal
Arwen Blackwood-Ximenes
Anne Dwyer
Kate Falkenberg
Casual Research Support Staff working on projects
Name
Saeed Afshar
Role
Research Assistant
Saeed Afshar
Research Assistant
Delvean Ahfat
Research Assistant
Delvean Ahfat
Tiarnah Ahfat
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Tiarnah Ahfat
Samra Alispahic
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Samra Alispahic
Samra Alispahic
Project
50243 – Hardware Acceleration for Neural Systems –
André van Schaik
81099 - UWS Research Support for ARC Future
Fellowship holder Philip de Chazal
51514 – Understanding bilingual language acquisition in
northern indigenous Australia: Phonological, lexical,
orthographic and family factors
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
51514 – Understanding bilingual language acquisition in
northern Indigenous Australia: phonological, lexical,
orthographic, and family factors – Caroline Jones
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
50231 – Understanding different speakers vs different
accents: apples and applies or apples and pears? – Paola
Escudero
Research Assistant
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
Research Assistant
50179 – The seeds of literacy in infancy – Denis
Burnham
82964 – Research Allowance – Denis Burnham
50179 – The seeds of literacy in infancy – Denis
Burnham
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
50169 – Unconscious Processing: To what extent how
flexible and how smart? – Chris Davis
82964 – Research Allowance – Denis Burnham
81099 – Future Fellowship – Philip de Chazal
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
50231 – Understanding different speakers vs different
accents: apples and applies or apples and pears? – Paola
Escudero
50169 – Unconscious processing; to what extent, how
flexible and how smart? – Chris Davis
59273 – Virtual laboratory – above and beyond speech,
language and music: A virtual lab for human
communication science (HCS vLAB) – Denis Burnham
73040 – Research Training – MARCS
59273 – Virtual laboratory – above and beyond speech,
language and music: A virtual lab for human
communication science (HCS vLAB) – Denis Burnham
59273 – Virtual laboratory – above and beyond speech,
language and music: A virtual lab for human
communication science (HCS vLAB) – Denis Burnham
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
50194 – Electronic Auditory Pathway – André van
Schaik
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
Lamya Antonios
Elizabeth Byron
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Elizabeth Byron
Leo Chong
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Leo Chong
Gregory Cohen
Sarah Cutfield
Rozmin Dadwani
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Elita Dakhoul
Research Assistant
Anne Dwyer
Research Assistant
Anne Dwyer
Mona Faris
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Sarah Fenwick
Research Assistant
Sophie Gates
Libin George
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Amy German
Research Assistant
33
Arwen Blackwood Ximenes
Research Assistant
Christian Kroos
Saya Kawase
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Daunia Laurenti
Scott Lee
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Isabel Lopez
Isabel Lopez
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Isabel Lopez
Isabel Lopez
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Isabel Lopez
Research Assistant
Isabel Lopez
Research Assistant
Gretel Macdonald
Robin McConnel
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Sarah McIntyre
Research Assistant
Donna McLaren
Madeline Lewis
Madhuka Naiwala
Pathirannehelage
Nhung Nguyen
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Scott O’Loughlin
Research Assistant
Scott O’Loughlin
Jia Hoong Ong
Gemma Ovenden
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Gemma Ovenden
Research Assistant
Anita Painter
Research Assistant
Tim Paris
Research Assistant
Valeria Peretokina
Research Assistant
Sonya Prasad
Research Assistant
Edna Roberts
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
50169 – Unconscious processing; to what extent, how
flexible and how smart? – Chris Davis
50206 – You came to die?! – Catherine Best
50169 – Unconscious processing; to what extent, how
flexible and how smart? – Chris Davis
20909 – Antonio Lauto Start Up Funds
51514 – Understanding bilingual language acquisition in
northern indigenous Australia: Phonological, lexical,
orthographic and family factors
50203 - Motherese by ear and eye – Christine Kitamura
50231 – Understanding different speakers vs different
accents: apples and applies or apples and pears? – Paola
Escudero
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
50226 – Children's generalisation and adaptation to
unfamiliar regional accents reveal the path of early word
learning – Catherine Best, Christine Kitamura
66166 – The impact of vocal emotion on early word
learning: Behavioural and neural responses to parental
IDS in Swedish and Australian English [via Stockholm
Uni] – Christine Kitamura
51553 – ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of
Language
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
51514 – Understanding bilingual language acquisition in
northern Indigenous Australia: phonological, lexical,
orthographic, and family factors – Caroline Jones
53018 – Enhanced sensory perception via jitter reduction
and neural synchronisation evoked by subsensory
electrical noise stimulation - NHMRC
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
71548 – JRE
81099 – UWS Research Support for ARC Future
Fellowship holder Philip de Chazal
59273 – Virtual laboratory – above and beyond speech,
language and music: A virtual lab for human
communication science (HCS vLAB) – Denis Burnham
50179 – The seeds of literacy in infancy – Denis
Burnham
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
82913 – MARCS RIF BOT – Denis Burnham
50226 – Children’s generalisation and adaptation to
unfamiliar regional accents reveal the path of early word
learning – Catherine Best
50231 – Understanding different speakers vs. different
accents: Apples and apples or apples and pears? – Paola
Escudero
51514 – Understanding bilingual language acquisition in
northern Indigenous Australia: phonological, lexical,
orthographic, and family factors – Caroline Jones
50169 – Unconscious processing; to what extent, how
flexible and how smart? – Chris Davis
50179 – The seeds of literacy in infancy – Denis
Burnham
50169 – Unconscious processing; to what extent, how
flexible and how smart? – Chris Davis
51514 – Understanding bilingual language acquisition in
northern Indigenous Australia: phonological, lexical,
orthographic, and family factors – Caroline Jones
34
Petrina Rosas
Research Assistant
Alexandra Saunders
Research Assistant
Simone Simonetti
Research Assistant
Josephine Terry
Research Assistant
Michelle Williams
Sarah Wright
Admin Assistant
Research Assistant
51514 – Understanding bilingual language acquisition in
northern Indigenous Australia: phonological, lexical,
orthographic, and family factors – Caroline Jones
64260 – Partner funding – Australian Dance Theatre for
Thinking Brains and Bodies (ARC Linkage – Kate
Stevens)
50169 – Unconscious Processing: To what extent how
flexible and how smart? – Chris Davis
50231 – Understanding different speakers vs different
accents: apples and applies or apples and pears? – Paola
Escudero
82913 – Research Investment Fund – MARCS
50206 – You came to DIE?! Perceptual adaptation to
regional accents as a new lens on the puzzle of spoken
word recognition – Catherine Best
35
6.3
The MARCS Institute Members
Dr Mark Antoniou, BA (Hons), PhD UWS: Mark is an ARC Research Fellow (DECRA) within the
MARCS Institute at UWS. His research concerns the effects of language learning across the lifespan on the
brain. Mark holds an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award that investigates the contribution of
individual differences in cognitive abilities to language learning outcomes. He is a Co-Investigator on two
grants that explore the potential benefits of foreign language training in older adults to promote healthy brain
function, counteract age-related cognitive decline, and halt the progression of neurodegenerative disease
(e.g., dementia). Mark is also working with Professor Anne Cutler to explain the native listening advantage
by charting perceptual adaptation across languages.
Dr Vincent Aubanel, MSc, Aix Marseille Université: Vincent is a postdoctoral research fellow in the
Multisensory Processing program at MARCS Institute, UWS. He obtained his PhD at Laboratoire Parole et
Langage (LPL) in Aix-en-Provence, France, under the supervision of Pr. Noël Nguyen. He also holds a MSc
in Music Technology (Limerick, Ireland) and a MSc in Computer Sciences (Marseille, France). He joined
the MARCS Institute in October 2013 on an ARC-funded research program exploring the range of cues
contributing to intelligibility in difficult circumstances.
Professor Catherine Best, BSc, MA & PhD, Michigan State U: Best's Perceptual Assimilation Model
(PAM) of speech perception is widely cited and attracts frequent plenary invitations; national (UWS,
UNSW, UMelbourne, La Trobe, UNewcastle, Macquarie) and international collaborators (NZ, UK,
Denmark, France, USA, Canada, Taiwan, Italy, Spain); and HDR students (Australia, Serbia, Russia, USA,
India). She studies cross-linguistic and cross-dialect speech perception and word recognition from infancy
through adulthood, including bilinguals, second language learners, Deaf signers and children with language
disabilities, and articulatory properties of speech across languages and English dialects. Her work has been
supported by NATO, NIH, Fulbright and ARC, including CI-1 of two current ARC grants: Perceptual
adaptation to regional accents… ($500,000 2012-15); and Word generalization and adaptation to unfamiliar
regional accents… ($390,000 2013-15).
Dr Paul Breen BEng (Hons Class I), PhD University of Limerick, Ireland. From 2007-12, Paul was with the
School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, School of Engineering & Informatics, National University of
Ireland Galway, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and was later appointed as an Adjunct Lecturer (2010).
He was a visiting researcher at University of Twente/Roessingh R&D, The Netherlands (2006), Harvard
Medical School (2008) and the University of Western Sydney (2012). Paul joined The MARCS Institute in
2013 as a Senior Research Lecturer in the Biomedical Engineering & Neuroscience (BENS) Research
Group. His research interests centre on the development of novel biomedical devices primarily for the
diagnosis and treatment of vascular and nervous system disorders. He has developed several patented
technologies including wearable hemodynamic sensors and neuromodulation devices.
Professor Denis Burnham, BA (Hons) UNE, PhD Monash, Denis is Leader of the MARCS Speech and
Language Research Program; President, Australasian Speech Science & Technology of Association; and cofounder of the Auditory-Visual Speech Processing Association (AVISA). Denis conducts research on the
seeds of literacy in infancy with Goswami at Cambridge; language specific speech perception and tone
perception and production with MARCS researchers, Kalashnikova, Kasisopa, Mattock, Peter and with
Lacerda and Schwarz, U.Stockholm; Attina, France; Vatikiotis-Bateson, UBC; McBride, CUHK; Tong,
HKU; auditory-visual speech perception with Sekiyama, U. Kumamoto; Vatikiotis-Bateson, UBC; infant
speech perception and infant-directed speech with Kalashnikova, Mattock and Peter at UWS; Thai speech
perception, language and reading with Acharn Luksaneeyanawin, U.Chulalongkorn Acharn Chutamanee
Onsuwan and Ajarn Charturong Tuntibundhit, Thammasat U., Reilly, Maynooth Univ. Ireland; and
Kasisopa, MARCS; Aging Creatively, with the UWS Writing and Society group; and Talking Thinking
Heads (with Kasisopa, Stevens & Stanton at UWS). Denis also currently leads ARC projects on ‘The Seeds
of Literacy’ and ‘The Big ASC’ (AusTalk Australian Speech Corpus), and the NeCTAR-funded ‘Human
Communication Science Virtual Lab’.
36
Dr Yossi Buskila, BSc, MSc, PhD, Ben-Gurion University: Yossi joined the MARCS institute in Nov 2011
and is currently a postdoctoral researcher. He received his PhD degree in neurophysiology from Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel, in 2010. Following his PhD he joined the lab of Professor
Graham Ellis-Davies in the Department of Physiology at Drexel University College of Medicine as a
postdoctoral research fellow, where he studied the effect of β-amyloid on cortical pyramidal neurons using
electrophysiological and 2-photon imaging techniques. His current research focuses on signal
communication and processing in cortical networks. Yossi use multi-site electrophysiological recordings in
brain slices along with imaging techniques to study the adaptation of spike propagation delays in dendrites
and also the neuronal-astrocytic interactions in the somatosensory cortex.
Professor Anne Cutler, BA, DipEd, MA Melbourne, PhD Texas: Anne’s research areas are speech
perception, speech prosody, phonological structure, spoken word access processes, perceptual learning, and
the influence of language-specific phonology in listening to native and non-native speech. She is currently
researching the sources of the advantages inherent to listening in the native language, in part in an ARCfunded project together with Dr Evelina Fedorenko (MIT). Before joining the MARCS Institute she worked
in Europe for many years, including 1982-1993 at the Medical Research Council’s Applied Psychology Unit
in Cambridge, and 1993-2013 as director for language comprehension at the Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Anne is Program Leader (Processing) in the ARC Centre of
Excellence in the Dynamics of Language, launched in 2014. She is a member of the Dutch Royal Academy
of Sciences, the Academia Europaea, and the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia, a foreign member of
the National Academy of Science (US) and an honorary fellow of the Australian Academy of the
Humanities.
Professor Christopher Davis, BSc (Hons) Monash, PhD Monash: Chris' expertise is in experiment-based
research on language processing in its various modalities. He has developed a research paradigm (masked
priming) that has become a standard in psycholinguistic research. His multimodal speech research examines
diverse levels of perceptual interaction (ranging from property-based signal processing to visual effects on
clear speech). This work has been funded by a five-year Discovery Project: Establishing how head and face
movement properties contribute to the perception of speech and identity with Associate Professor Jeesun
Kim (MARCS) and Professor Mikko Sams (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland). He is a member of
the ARC/NHMRC funded Thinking Head project, and an OZreader for the Australian Research Council
Discovery Grants Scheme.
Professor Roger Dean, MA, PhD Cambridge, DSc Brunel, DLitt Brunel, FAHA: Roger works on cognition
of electroacoustic music, exploiting its unfamiliarity to provide tests of sonic cognition which may not solely
be enculturated by Western classical music. He studies relationships between sonic intensity, spectral
content, and perception of change and affect. He also has a computational study to identify archetypal
dynamic and timbral structures shared by much music. He is working on cognitive processes during musical
improvisation with Dr Freya Bailes (now of the University of Hull), and on affective impacts of acoustic
intensity patterns in music (with new Career Development Fellow Dr Kirk Olsen, and Professor Stevens). As
a composer-improviser, he is the founder-director of the creative ensemble austraLYSIS. He has an ongoing
collaboration on computational modelling of cognition of musical segmentation, particularly by rhythmic
structure, with Professor Geraint Wiggins and Dr Marcus Pearce, Goldsmiths, University of London, and this
aligns with work on rhythm generation and perception in collaboration with postdoctoral fellow Andrew
Milne, who joined MARCS in late 2013.
Professor Philip de Chazal, BE, MBiomedE, PhD UNSW: Philip joined The Biomedical Engineering and
Neuroscience group at the MARCS Institute in August 2011 as an ARC Future Fellow. Philip's research is
focused on understanding breathing, sleeping and cardiac physiology. He also develops automated diagnostic
devices for monitoring sleep and the cardio-respiratory system. He previously was a Founder, Director and
Chief Technical Officer of the Irish biomedical company BiancaMed.
Dr Donald Derrick, BA (Hons) Saint Mary's University, MA Dalhousie University, PhD University of
British Columbia. Donald was awarded his PhD in 2011 from the University of British Columbia in
Linguistics. Donald studies speech production and perception in order to identify the phonetic constraints on
low-level speech production, and the low-level precepts that can enhance or interfere with speech perception.
Donald is also working on enhancements to hearing aids.
37
Dr Paola Escudero, MSc University of Edinburgh, PhD Utrecht University. Paola joined MARCS in
January 2011 and is currently a Senior Lecturer. She received her PhD in 2005 and was working at the
University of Amsterdam until the end of 2010. Her research focuses on auditory and visual perception in
diverse populations, including human infants, children and adults, and zebra finches. Her current research is
funded by the Brain and Cognition program (2011-2014) of the University of Amsterdam where she is
Visiting Professor and by an ARC grant (DP 2013-2016) on speaker versus dialect normalization. Paola is
part of the editorial board of Second Language Research.
Dr Dominique Estival, D.E.U.G. (Diploma Modern Greek) Ecole des Langues Orientales, Université de
Paris-I, France, BA (English) and MA (English Linguistics) Université de Paris-X Nanterre, France, PhD
(Linguistics) University of Pennsylvania, USA. Dr Estival joined the MARCS Institute in 2010 as a project
officer for the AusTalk project, the large Australian audio-visual speech data collection. Her research
interests have encompassed the computational modelling of language change, machine translation, grammar
formalisms for linguistic engineering, spoken dialogue systems, and more recently aviation communication.
She manages Alveo, the Virtual Lab for Human Communication Science, and is writing a book on Aviation
English to be published by Routledge.
Dr Gaetano D. Gargiulo, Laurea Magistralis (MS equivalent) in electronic engineering ('Federico II' The
University of Naples, Italy); PhD in Biomedical engineering ('Alma Mater' the University of Bologna, Italy).
During his PhD and for almost two years following, Gaetano worked in a start-up company that he helped
found. He joined the MARCS Institute in late 2011 to work on the development of a faster Electrical
Impedance Tomography device for fast brain ischemia foci localisation, scheduled to be completed by early
2016. Gaetano is currently working on cutting edge wearable biomedical devices that allow non-invasive
monitoring of lungs and cardiac functions. To date he has authored more than 50 papers, is listed as inventor
on 10 patents, and has edited two scholarly books.
Dr Tara Hamilton, BE (Electrical) (Hons Class I), BCom (Economics and Marketing) USyd, MEng
(Biomedical) UNSW, PhD USyd. Tara joined The MARCS Institute in 2013 as a Senior Research Lecturer in
the Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience research group. Tara's research interests include
neuromorphic
engineering,
low
power
analogue
and
digital
IC
design,
and
biomedical engineering/bioelectronics (medical devices and sensors). Tara has previously held academic
positions at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the University of Queensland, and the University
of Sydney. She also has extensive industry experience in companies such as Cochlear Ltd., Perceptia
Devices Australia, G2 Microsystems, and Surgical Diagnostics.
Associate Professor Caroline Jones, BA Sydney, PhD Massachusetts: Caroline’s ARC Future Fellowship
research is focused on characterising the inherent variability in adult speech in north Australian Kriol and its
implications for Indigenous children’s acquisition of Kriol and English. For this work, Caroline is building
the first corpus of conversational Kriol plus a longitudinal bilingual corpus of children’s speech, and leading
an ARC Linkage Grant with researchers at Macquarie and Otago and with industry (Sunrise Health Service
Aboriginal Corporation, The Smith Family) to investigate the effects of an early childhood language program
on children’s first language in the context of their health and hearing status. Within the ARC Centre of
Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Caroline is a CI in the Learning Program and Deputy Leader of
the Future Technologies Thread.
Dr Marina Kalashnikova, BA (Summa Cum Laude) Linguistics, MA Linguistics University of Texas at El
Paso, PhD Psychology Lancaster University. Marina joined MARCS in 2013 as a postdoctoral fellow and
currently holds the position of Researcher in Infancy Studies and MARCS BabyLab Leader. Her work
focuses on the projects Seeds of Literacy and HEARing CRC where she investigates perceptual and linguistic
development in infants at children who are at risk for developing sensory or cognitive impairments. Her
other research interests include early lexical acquisition in monolingual and bilingual infants and the effects
of bilingual first language acquisition and early second language learning on the development of linguistic
skills, and the advantages that these experiences represent for early socio-cognitive maturation.
Dr Benjawan Kasisopa, BA (English: Linguistics), Chiang Mai University, MA (Linguistics),
Chulalongkorn University, PhD (Psychology), University of Western Sydney: Benjawan joined the MARCS
38
Institute as a postdoctoral research fellow in October 2013. Her research focuses on Auditory-visual speech
perception and production, especially on tone languages; and eye movements in reading. She is currently
working on ‘Auditory-visual effects on tone perception of hearing impaired native listeners of Thai’, with
Professor Burnham, Dr Onsuwan and Associate Professor Tantibundhit (CILS, Thammasat University,
Thailand); ‘Auditory-visual effects on tone perception of Thai elderly’, with Professor Burnham and
Associate Professor Luksaneeyanawin (CRSLP, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand); ‘Language attrition of
Thai elderly’, with Professor Burnham and Associate Professor Luksaneeyanawin; ‘Eye movements in
reading Thai of native readers with dyslexia’, with Professor Burnham, Professor Reilly (Maynooth
University, Ireland), Dr Onsuwan, and Associate Professor Tantibundhit; ‘Developmental eye movements in
reading Thai: A longitudinal study’, with Professor Burnham and Professor Reilly; as well as ‘Developing
speech processor for cochlear implants patients in Thai project’, with Professor Burnham, Associate
Professor Tantibundhit and Dr Onsuwan.
Associate Professor Peter Keller, BA (Hons), BMus (Hons), PhD UNSW: Peter conducts research that is
aimed at understanding the behavioural and brain bases of human interaction in musical contexts. He is
specifically interested in the cognitive and motor processes that enable performers in musical ensembles to
coordinate with one another. Peter has held research positions at Haskins Laboratories (New Haven, USA)
and the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research (Munich, Germany). He led the Music Cognition
and Action group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig,
Germany, from 2007 until 2012, and has served as Editor of the journal Empirical Musicology Review
(2010-2012). An ARC Future Fellowship supports Peter's ongoing research.
Associate Professor Jeesun Kim, BA, MA Korea University, MSc UNSW, PhD UNSW: After obtaining her
PhD in 1998, Kim has been awarded a number of national and international fellowships. Starting with an
ARC IREX fellowship in 2000, she was awarded a prestigious (USA) National Academy of Education
Spencer Postdoctoral fellowship in 2001, an ARC APD fellowship in 2002, and an ARC QEII fellowship in
2006. She was based at the University of Melbourne from 2000 to 2005. In August 2005, Kim accepted a
lectureship (assistant prof) at Sejong University (Seoul, Korea) and then moved back to Australia to
commence her position as a QEII research fellow (Associate Prof) at the MARCS Institute, UWS, in July
2006. The strands of Kim’s research (e.g., on auditory-visual speech perception, on speech perception in
noise) have, as an overarching theme, the idea that speech perception research needs to be about
investigating real-world challenges and solutions.
Dr Jennifer MacRitchie, MEng, PhD University of Glasgow, UK. Jennifer joined MARCS Institute as a
postdoctoral research fellow in 2014. She received her PhD from the University of Glasgow in early 2011,
and completed a postdoctoral position at the Conservatory of Southern Switzerland (Conservatorio della
Svizzera Italiana). With a background in both electrical engineering and music, Jennifer’s research focuses
on the multi-modal analysis of performance, using existing technologies as well as specially designed optical
motion capture systems to measure dexterity in piano performance. Her research interests lie in examining
how performers develop and use their skills to communicate musical information with co-performers and
audiences, particularly in the production and perception of phrasing structure and expressive intent. She is
also working on a developing a motion capture program that can be used for injury monitoring and
prevention both in instrumental lessons and practice at home. Jennifer is an associate editor for the new
Performance Science section of Frontiers in Psychology.
Dr Yatin Mahajan, BSc, MSc (Audiology) All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, University of Mysore;
PhD Cognitive Science, Macquarie University: Yatin joined MARCS Institute in 2013 as a career
development postdoctoral research fellow (brain based methods) in Multisensory Processing research
program at MARCS. Yatin uses electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate auditory and auditory-visual
processing in both ageing and a developing human brain. Yatin’s ongoing research also attempts to establish
a link between cognition (selective attention, working memory, speech perception), communication abilities
and advancing age using behavioural and neurophysiological methods. His interdisciplinary research with
colleagues nationally and overseas has looked into, psychophysics of audition, investigating the effects of
meditation on brain processing, letter-sound integration in children with dyslexia and studying faceperception using novel EEG methods.
39
Dr Andrew Milne, BA Fine Art, Sheffield Hallam University, UK; MA Music, Mind and Technology,
Jyväskylä University, Finland; PhD, The Open University, UK. Andrew joined the MARCS Institute as a
postdoctoral research fellow in 2013, having just received his PhD in computational musicology from The
Open University. In his research, he develops and experimentally tests computational models of musical
structure and music perception. Andrew’s specific focus is on tonality and meter—for example, using
acoustical features to explain why differing successions of chords induce differing feelings of expectation
and resolution. Andrew’s research also engages with new musical interfaces, including algorithmic
generation of music, as exemplified by his free suite of music applications available at the Dynamic Tonality
website.
Dr Giacomo Novembre, BA (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy), MSc (Radboud University
of Nijmegen, The Netherlands), PhD (University of Leipzig, Germany). Giacomo joined the MARCS Institute
in October 2013. His research utilizes music as a model to explore the neurocognitive mechanisms that
underpin action-perception coupling in the human brain. He explores this topic in the context of social
interactions such as imitation and inter-personal coordination, using neuroimaging techniques such as EEG
and Brain Stimulation (TMS, tACS). More recently, his research paradigms are moving toward hyperscanning (simultaneous recording of multiple brains’ activity in the context of human-to-human
interactions), especially dual-EEG.
Dr Kirk Olsen, BPsych (Hons) UWS, PhD UWS: Kirk joined the MARCS Institute as a postdoctoral
research fellow in August 2012 and is part of the UWS Career Development Fellowship scheme. His
research utilises psychophysical techniques to investigate dynamic acoustic attributes of sound (e.g.,
intensity change) and their effects on loudness, affect, and psychophysiology. Kirk’s findings on the relative
influence of recency in memory, neural persistence, and sensory adaptation in response to increases and
decreases of acoustic intensity have applications from basic auditory psychophysics to perceptual and
affective responses to music. Ongoing work on spatial hearing will investigate key cognitive and acoustic
factors important for identification, localisation, and loudness of environmental sound in normal hearing and
hearing impaired listeners. Kirk is currently preparing a Discovery Early Career Research Award application
for submission in early 2015 on this topic.
Dr Varghese Peter, BSc Mysore, MSc Mysore, PhD Macquarie. Varghese joined MARCS Institute in
January 2013 as a postdoctoral research fellow in the speech and language research program. His research
focuses on the development of reading and language in children with particular interest in developmental
dyslexia and specific language impairment. He is currently using electroencephalography (EEG) to study
various aspects of speech perception in typically developing infants and children as well as children with
reading and language impairments.
Dr Jason Shaw, BA Linguistics, University of Southern California, PhD Linguistics, New York University:
Jason joined UWS in 2010 and is now a Senior Lecturer. His research investigates how phonological form
structures natural variation in speech and how this variation is interpreted by listeners. His approach
combines language description with formal computational models and experimental methods that capture the
temporal unfolding of speech planning, production, and perception. Experimental methods include eye
tracking in speech perception experiments and Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) in speech production
experiments. Current projects include theoretical/computational work on phonological representations
funded by an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award; a study of spoken word recognition across
dialects of English funded by an ARC Discovery Project (with Professor Catherine Best and partner
investigators Professor Jen Hay, Professor Gerry Docherty, Professor Paul Foulkes and Dr Bronwen Evans);
a project investigating speech perception and production links through the study of lexical tone; a corpusbased study of new word formation in Chinese; on-going work on the phonetic expression of stress and
syllable structure across languages.
Dr Christopher Stanton, BA, B Info Sys, B Bus (Hons) Uni Newcastle, PhD, UTS. With a curiosity for all
things related to cognition and artificial intelligence, Dr Stanton's undergraduate degrees include an Arts
degree focusing on psychology and linguistics, and an Information Science degree with a major stream in
software engineering. After a stint in industry as a software developer, Chris undertook a PhD in the field of
artificial intelligence at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), graduating in 2008. Chris has been
involved in numerous robot soccer (RoboCup) campaigns with multiple universities, including the
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University of Newcastle, UTS, and the University of Science and Technology China (USTC). After
completing a Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship at UTS, Chris joined the University of Western Sydney in
2012 to pursue challenges in the fields of Human Robot Interaction (HRI) and Human Machine Interaction
(HMI). His current research interests include HRI, models of attention applied to autonomous agents, and
using machine learning for pose and gesture recognition.
Professor Kate Stevens, BA (Hons), PhD USyd, MAPS, RPsych; Leader of the Music Cognition and Action
research program: Kate uses methods from experimental psychology to investigate cognition of complex
nonverbal sequences in the universal and culturally significant contexts of music and dance. During 2014,
she led an ARC Linkage Project “Thinking Brains and Bodies” in collaboration with Australian Dance
Theatre in Adelaide and researchers from cognitive science, dance, and anthropology at The University of
Melbourne, Deakin University, The University of Western Australia, Coventry University, and University of
California San Diego, and collaborated on Dr Gabrielle Weidemann’s ARC DP “I like you and I just can't
help it: Explaining automatic affective responses”. Kate supervised psychology honours and 4th year
psychology projects. She is an editor of Memory Studies (Sage), associate editor of Music Perception, and,
during 2014, edited invited special issues for Acoustics Australia and Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Kate was a Research Institute Directors’ nominee on the UWS Senate (2012-2014).
Dr Klaus Stiefel, Magister of natural sciences University of Vienna, Doctorate of natural sciences University
of Vienna and Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. He did his undergraduate thesis work, on cold-shock
in E. coli, at the Institute of Microbiology and Genetics of the University of Vienna. Klaus then did his
doctorate work, on synaptic plasticity, with Wolf Singer at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in
Frankfurt, Germany. His degree, in zoology, was granted by the University of Vienna, with Friedrich Barth
as the head of the thesis committee. He then did a postdoc with Terry Sejnowski at his Computational
Neurobiology Lab at the Salk Institute, working on dendritic integration and neural oscillations. From 2006
to 2011 Klaus was at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Klaus' research interests are the
computational capabilities of nervous systems. In single neurons, he is interested in neuronal excitability and
dendritic signal integration. In networks, he is especially interested in "noise", synchronous oscillations,
reverbaratory activity and concepts like liquid state machines. His methods are theoretical and simulationbased. He aims for an approach that is informed by biology and inspired by dynamical systems; realistic
without drowning in detail; empirically meaningful but conceptually ground breaking at the same time. A
serious side-interest of Klaus' is the biology of fishes, especially the marine family gobiidae (gobies). In
2011 he surveyed a marine region in the central Philippines for gobies down to a depth of 60 metres.
Professor André van Schaik, MSc, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands, PhD, Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland. André is the Program Leader for the Biomedical
Engineering and Neuroscience (BENS) research program. His research focuses on three main areas:
neuromorphic engineering, bioelectronics, and neuroscience. He is a world leader in neuromorphic
engineering research and a Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to neuromorphic circuits and systems. He
has authored more than 100 papers and is an inventor of more than 30 patents. He is a founder of three startup companies: VAST Audio, Personal Audio, and Heard Systems.
Dr Manuel Varlet, MRes and PhD, Montpellier-1 University, France. The research of Dr Manuel Varlet
focuses on the processes underlying unintentional and intentional coordination of our movements with other
people and environmental rhythms. His research aims at understanding whether the coordination dynamics
and the neuropsychological processes involved are moderated by how the actor visually attends to the
stimulus and by the properties of the stimulus such as its kinematics or movement variability. Before joining
the Music Cognition and Action group at The MARCS Institute, Dr Varlet was researcher in the EuroMov
Centre at Montpellier-1 University (France) and in the centre for Cognition, Action and Perception at the
University of Cincinnati (USA).
Dr Runchun Mark Wang, MSEE, Shanghai Jiaotong University, PhD, UWS. Runchun Wang is a
postdoctoral research fellow in the Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience (BENS) research group. His
research focuses on three main areas: neuromorphic engineering, low power analogue and digital IC design,
and neuroscience. He also has extensive industry experience in companies such as LSI Ltd., and Verisilicon.
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Dr Grégory Zelic, PhD, University of Montpellier, France. Grégory joined UWS in 2013 as a postdoctoral
researcher in the Multisensory Processing program at MARCS Institute. In 2012, he achieved his PhD at the
Movement to Health Laboratory in Montpellier, France, on multisensory perception and coordination
dynamics. His current research at MARCS concerns the intentional and non-intentional synchronisation
between speech and gesture and especially on how a performed /a perceived speech can interfere with
gesture performance.
Honorary Adjunct Professors:
Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings, B. Sc. (Physics) Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, M.S.E.E., PhD
(Electrical Engineering) University of Pennsylvania. Ralph is a professor of electrical and computer
engineering, and computer science at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). He is also an Eminent Visiting
Scholar to the University of Western Sydney in the MARCS Institute. He is the recipient of the NSF’s Career
Award and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award. In 2006, he was named a
Visiting African Fellow and a Fulbright Fellowship Grantee for his sabbatical at University of Cape Town,
South Africa. He was invited to be a lecturer at the National Academies of Science Kavli Frontiers Program,
held in November 2007. He won the 2010 JHU Applied Physics Lab R.W. Hart Prize for Best R&D Project
in Development. His research interest includes mixed signal VLSI systems, computational sensors, computer
vision, neuromorphic engineering, smart structures, mobile robotics, legged locomotion, and neuroprosthetic
devices. He has published ~200 technical articles, 1 book, 9 book chapters and holds 5 patents (plus 2
pending) on his work in these subjects.
Professor Ronan Reilly, PhD (Psychology), University College Dublin: Ronan is a Professor of Computer
Science at National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He has a background in psychology and computer
science. His research career has involved the application of computer modelling to various aspects of
language understanding and reading. Most of his work has focussed on understanding the reading process
starting at the level of eye movement control. A particular concern of his research has been to develop
models that can account for the eye movement behaviour of readers across a range of writing systems, from
the Roman-based script of English to Thai and Chinese.
Honorary Adjunct Fellows:
Dr Rikke Bundgaard-Nielsen, BA, MA University of Aarhus, Denmark, PhD UWS. Rikke conducts
research in speech and language, particularly cross-dialect speech production and second language speech
perception and production in both infants and adults.
Dr Nigel Nettheim, PhD (Musicology) UNSW, PhD (Mathematical Statistics) Stanford: Nigel conducts
research in musicology, including applications associated with cognitive science.
Dr Barbara Tillmann, MA, PhD Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, France: Barbara uses behavioural,
neurophysiological and computational approaches to study auditory cognition and is mainly interested in
music and language perception as well as implicit learning of auditory structures. In France, Barbara holds a
CNRS-research position and is the team leader for Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics in the Lyon
Neuroscience Research Center.
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