CV

University degress

2012: Habilitation (Venia legendi in "Allgemeine Linguistik: Phonetik und Psycholinguistik")

2004: PhD in Phonetics/Phonology from Saarland University, Germany (PhD thesis: "Production and Perception of Thematic Contrast in German") - supervised by D.R. Ladd and W.J. Barry

2001: European Masters in Language and Speech from Saarland University, Germany

2001: M.A. in Phonetics/Phonology, minor in Computational Linguistics from Saarland University, Germany (Master thesis (Magisterarbeit): "The complexity of hidden Markov modelling of accentuation in spontaneous German speech") - supervised by J. Koreman and W.J. Barry

Employment

since Nov 2012: University of Konstanz, Department of Linguistics: Professor for General Linguistics/Phonetics

Oct 2010 - March 2011: Replacement for Prof. Josef Bayer (University of Konstanz)

Nov. 2009 - Oct 2012: University of Konstanz, Department of Linguistics
Assistant professor (Juniorprofessorin)

March 2005 - Oct 2009: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, NL
Research staff member in the Comprehension Group, headed by Anne Cutler. Behavioural and eye-tracking experiments to examine the processing of intonation and information structure in adults and infants (Maternity leave from April 2006 - Jan 2007 and Jan 2010 - July 2009)

May 2004 - Feb 2005: Phonetics Laboratory, University of Oxford, UK
Postdoctoral Research Associate in two projects: (a) Comparison of laryngeal movement in whispered and normal speech for rising and falling intonation contours using Magnet Resonance Imaging; (b) Investigation of people's ability to mimic a variety of artificial intonation contours to test the mental representation of intonation contours.

Feb 2001 - April 2001: IBM European Speech Research Group, Heidelberg, Germany
Internship. Implementation of rule-based grapheme to phoneme rules for speech synthesis using proprietary in-house software

Sept 1990 - July 1993: Kathrein-Werke AG, Rosenheim, Germany
Apprenticeship for technician in commmunication electronics. Contents covered basic electronics and electricity, VHF technology, design and adaptation of electronic circuits, measurements in circuits, trouble-shooting and repair.

Grants and Awards

May 2014: Three-year DFG reserach grant on Bias in Polar Questions (with M. Romero)

Oct 2013: Teaching award (Lehrpreis der Studierenden der Universität Konstanz

Mai 2012: One-year research project (1 PhD student, 1 student assistant) funded by the Young Scholar Fund of the University of Konstanz. Perception, storage and articulation of second language phonology

Feb 2011: Two-year research project (2 student assistants) funded by the Young Scholar Fund of the University of Konstanz. Intonation in Spracherwerb und Produktionsplanung

April 2010: One-year reserach project (1 PhD student and 1 student assistant, together with Dr. Eva Smolka) funded by the Young Scholar Fund of the University of Konstanz. In-between complex words and phrases - probing the mental representation of idioms by means of prosody

Dec 2009: Two-year research project (2 student assistants) funded by the Young Scholar Fund of the University of Konstanz. Wortstellung und grammatische Funktion in der intonatorischen Markierung von Kontrast: Produktion und Perzeption

July 2009: Two-year research project (1 Phd student and 2 student assistants) from the German research council (DFG) within the priority program Phonological and phonetic competence: between grammar, signal processing, and neural activity

Sept 2001 - April 2004: PhD-Scholarship within the International Research Training Group "Language Technology and Cognitive Systems" (German Research Council, #715)

Aug 2000: Scholarship for Chinese intensive course (Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach-Stiftung and Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes)

Oct 1997 - Aug 1998: Scholarship from Miyagi prefecture (Japan) to cover tuition fees and accom- modation at Tohoku University

Aug 1996: Scholarship for Polish intensive course (Polonikum Warszawa)

Oct 1995 - Jan 2001: Governmental MA-Scholarship (BayBFG) 1993: Awarded for best exam by the chamber of commerce and industry (section Upper Bavaria)

PhD supervision

Finished PhD-projects

2009: Laura de Ruiter (MPI Nijmegen). Studies on intonation and information structure in child and adult German

2012: Heike Eisenhuth (University of Konstanz). Word Boundary Markers in German Speech and their Auditory Perception

2013: Giuseppina Turco (MPI Nijmegen). The expression of verum focus marking in native speakers and learners of Italian, French, Dutch and German

Ongoing PhD-projects

since 2010: Yuki Asano (University of Konstanz). Locating and overcoming foreign accent in rhythm and pitch

since 2010: Wen-Hsuan Chiao (University of Konstanz). First and Second Language Tone Perception and Production

since 2013: Andreas Walker (University of Konstanz). Counterfactuals

since 2014: Katharina Zahner (University of Konstanz). The role of intonation in infant speech segmentation

PhD committees

2010: Muna Pohl (University of Konstanz)

2012: Katrin Schweitzer (University of Stuttgart)

2014: Georgij Nowossjelow (University of Konstanz)