ASA in Philly

Last week I had the chance to give an invited talk at the 190th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Philadelphia (11-15 May 2026) — a first for me on the invited talk front, so it felt like a bit of a milestone! My talk, “Rethinking ‘young women’s creak’: Piecing together production, perception, and social evidence,” argued that the popular narrative linking vocal fry to young women doesn’t hold up empirically, and reflects sociocultural bias instead.

The entire session was phenomenal, and it was so great to meet researchers from various subfields all converging on the same topic. The creak community is alive and well!

The talk ended up getting some nice press coverage, which was a fun surprise. ASA put out a press release ahead of the session, and I participated in the press conference on May 12th. By the end of the week, articles had appeared in both New Scientist and Ars Technica!

On the non-conference side, Philadelphia turned out to be a really exciting city to spend a few days in. I made it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (the collection inside is genuinely stunning), and to Eastern State Penitentiary, which was equal parts fascinating and eerie. I highly recommend both if you’re ever in the area. The food scene was also great and I ate very well.