People
Kathleen F. Nagle, PhD, CCC-SLP is an associate professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Director of the SVO Lab. She earned her PhD in Speech & Hearing Sciences at the University of Washington. After postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Laryngeal Surgery & Voice Rehabilitation, she joined the faculty of the School of Health & Medical Sciences at Seton Hall in July 2015. Her research interests include acoustic and perceptual outcome measures, alaryngeal speech and the effects of prosody on speech intelligibility, particularly for accented speech.
Current SVO Lab Members
Maya Dobrygowski joined the SVO Lab in 2023 and is pursuing a master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology. Over the course of her undergraduate and graduate studies, she has developed an interest in working with bilingual individuals and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. She is part of the team investigating the relationship between perceived listening effort and intelligibility for foreign-accented speech.
Valerie Gorsky joined the SVO Lab in 2024 and is receiving her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology in May 2025. She has developed an interest in working with children and adults as well as conducting research as a speech-language pathologist. She is part of a team examining accent modification and its ethical ramifications.
Taylor King joined the SVOLab in 2023 as a graduate student in SLP. She will receive her master’s degree in 2024.
Karissa Sirois joined the SVO Lab in 2023 and is receiving her Master’s Degree in Speech-Language Pathology in May of 2024. Her research is investigating the ethical considerations of accent modification.
Megan Smith joined the SVOLab in 2023 as a graduate student in SLP. She will receive her master’s degree in 2024.
Isabella Toral joined the SVO Lab as a junior in Seton Hall’s undergraduate 4 + 2 SLP program in 2021 and continued conducting research after graduating in 2023. She has developed an interest in working with the geriatric population and research as an SLP. She is part of the team investigating accent modification and its ethical considerations.
Former SVO Lab Members
Ashley Callahan, a member of the SVO Lab from 2022-23, received her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology in 2023. Her research investigated the ethical principles to be considered when providing accent modification training.
Jackie Dowd graduated with her master’s degree in SLP in 2023 and was member of the SVO lab from 2022-23. She continued an investigation of the relationship between perceived listening effort and intelligibility for foreign-accented speech.
Seta Kelly graduated with her Master’s in Speech Language Pathology from Seton Hall in 2023. She worked as a research assistant in the SVO lab over the 2022-2023 year and spent her time in the lab researching ethical considerations in accent modification.
Erica Ketterer was a lab member from 2020-2022, when she obtained her master’s degree in speech-language pathology. She continued work on the relationship between perceived listening effort and intelligibility in tracheoesophageal speech, presenting it at the NJSHA 2022 convention.
Sean Runkle was a lab member from 2021-2022, obtaining his MS in speech-language pathology in May, 2022. He investigated the relationship between perceived listening effort and intelligibility for foreign-accented speech (Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean), creating the online program, analyzing the data, and presenting the findings at the NJSHA convention.
Amna S. Mira, CF-SLP, obtained her master’s degree in May 2020 from the Speech-Language Pathology program at Sargent College, Boston University. She volunteered at the SOV lab with Dr. Nagle from 2020-2022, and was a critical part of creating the SVOLab’s online studies. She has worked as a teaching assistant at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Amna is currently working on her PhD at the University of Cincinnati with Dr. Victoria McKenna.
Victoria Buscarnera is a 2021 graduate of the 4+2 program and the master’s program in speech-language pathology at Seton Hall University. In the SVO lab, she studied the relationship between perceived listening effort and intelligibility in tracheoesophageal speech. Victoria has particular interest in the medical field, specifically in dysphagia and voice.
Alissa Loffreno was a volunteer in the SVO Lab as an undergraduate in the 4+2 program in speech-language pathology at Seton Hall University. She did important work on the CAPE-V project, including her own investigation of ratings of breathiness and roughness for dysphonic speech. She graduated from the master’s program in Speech Language Pathology in 2021.
Haley Kypers graduated with her masters degree in speech-language pathology in May 2020. Her research focused on comparing perceived naturalness and acoustic variability in two types of pitch varying electrolarynx devices (sEMG controlled vs manual pitch modulation).
Joseph McManaman graduated with his master’s student in speech-language pathology in the class of 2020. For his research project, he analyzed a large corpus of sentences from the Sentence Intelligibility Test for their syntactic complexity. He presented his research at the Conference on Motor Speech in Santa Barbara, California in February, 2020.
Natalie Miller graduated from the Speech-Language Pathology master’s program at Seton Hall University in 2020. In the SVO Lab she studied the characteristics of electrolaryngeal speech produced using submental surface EMG (sEMG) versus thumb button-activated (TB) f0-modulation.
Elizabeth Kling, a member of the SVO Lab from 2018-19, received her master’s degree is speech-language pathology in 2019. Her research investigated intelligibility and naturalness ratings of electrolaryngeal speech.
Annie Bucca, a 2018-19 member of the SVO Lab, graduated with her master’s degree in speech-language pathology in 2019. Her research investigated perceived mental and temporal demand for dysarthric speech produced by individuals with Parkinson Disease.
Christian Krommenhoek was a graduate assistant and member of the lab from 2017-2019 and received her master’s degree in 2019. Her research examined intelligibility of dysarthric speech compared to perceived effort and frustration for listeners.
Christopher Donoso was a member of the SVO Lab from 2017-2018 and graduated with his master’s degree in 2019. His research focused on pitch variability in speech produced using an sEMG-modulated accessory for the electrolarynx.
Rawda Abdelmenam volunteered in the SVO Lab as an undergraduate in the 4+2 Speech Language Pathology Program at Seton Hall University. She obtained her master’s degree in speech-language pathology from SHU in 2021.
Jaclyn Colopietro, a member of the SVO Lab from 2016-2017, graduated with her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology. Her research focused on perceived listener effort for alaryngeal speech, specifically looking at the correlation between length of utterance and perceived listener effort. Her clinical interests include TBI, articulation, and neonatal care.
Amanda Robotti was a member of the SVO Lab from 2016-2017 and graduated with her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology. Amanda’s research focused on analyzing pause time and speech rate of electrolaryngeal speech.
Tiffany Vuong, a member of the SVO Lab from 2016-2017, graduated with her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology. Her research interests include analyzing what listeners perceive to be a “normal voice” and how vocal quality, pitch, resonance, and loudness may affect it.