Professor

Director, Center for Spoken Language Understanding

Email:vansantj@ohsu.edu
Phone: 503 346-3765
Fax: 503 346-3754
Office: Gaines Hall, Room 102
Personal Website

Education

Ph.D., Mathematical Psychology, University of Michigan, 1979
M.A., Statistical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1974
B.A., Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1971

Research Interests

I create new algorithms for the analysis of biological signals, specifically human speech (in particular, prosody), language, and gesture (using accelerometers), as well as animal vocal emissions. This work is increasingly focused on computerized behavioral assessment and intervention for neurological disorders, but also involves general-purpose systems such as new prosody generation engines for text to speech (TTS) synthesis. My current projects include language in autism spectrum disorders, prosody generation for TTS, prosody in Parkinson's disease, atypical movement in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorders, and (via our spin-off, BioSpeech, Inc.) auditory rehabilitation, analysis of mouse model vocal emissions, and phonemic awareness training.