Jeremy Steffman

The University of Edinburgh, Linguistics and English Language

Dugald Stewart Building
Edinburgh, EH8 9AD
United Kingdom

CV

Hello and welcome to my website.

I am a Lecturer in Phonetics ( = Assistant Prof.) at The University of Edinburgh.
I'm also an affiliated researcher at the Hanyang Instiute for Phonetics and Cognitive Science of Language. I was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University in the Prosody and Speech Dynamics Lab. I received my PhD in Linguistics from UCLA. [dissertation here]

My research deals with representations and processes in speech perception, prosody, intonation, and (primarily acoustic) phonetics. A lot of my research examines how prosody influences spoken language processing, especially in the uptake of segmental information. Check out the vita tab for a full list of publications and presentations.

If you are interested in pursuing a PhD with me as a supervisor, see here for more details. Prospective students are encouraged to get in touch in September to discuss their proposals.

Recent happenings

I'm very excited to be a Prominence Fellow at CRC 1252 at the Univerisity of Cologne visiting primarily in the summer of 2025.
I was thrilled to receive British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant: Specificity and generalisation in biphone-based learning in speech perception (SRG2425\250068).
This project examines how perceptual learning for biphone phonotactics, as shown in Steffman & Sundara 2023, may generalise accross talkers and classes of sounds.
This paper out now in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition:
Mayr, R., Montanari, S., Steffman, J., & Baghomian, M. (2025). Community language exposure affects voice onset time patterns in Spanish-English bilingual children and functional English monolingual children. [link]
This paper out now in JSHLR:
Montanari, S., Steffman, J. & Mayr, R. (2024). English Vowel Perception in Spanish-English Bilingual Preschoolers: Multiple-Talker Input is only Beneficial for Children with High Language Exposure Levels. [link]
Presented at INTERSPEECH and published in the proceedings: an evaluation of clustering algorithms as applied to intonation research.
Kaland, C., Steffman, J., & Cole, J. (2024) K-means and hierarchical clustering of F0 contours. Check it out [here].
Out now in Glossa:
Steffman, J. & Cole, J. (2024). Metrical enhancement in American English nuclear tunes. Glossa: A journal of general linguistics 9(1). [link]
Out now in Journal of Phonetics:
Iskarous, K., Cole, J. & Steffman, J. (2024). A Minimal Dynamical Model of Intonation: Tone contrast, alignment, and scaling of American English pitch accents as emergent properties. [link]
Out now in Journal of Phonetics:
Steffman, J., Cole, J. & Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. (2024). Intonational categories and continua in American English rising nuclear tunes. [link]