Fred Cummins

Scholar in residence July-August 2022

Fred Cummins is co-director of the cognitive science programme at University College Dublin. He obtained a PhD with a joint major in Cognitive Science and Linguistics in 1997 from Indiana University. Cummins is a leading scientist in a variety of fields and communities in the speech-centric sciences. He combines a solid knowledge of computer science as it relates to for example engineering, such as signal processing: speech technology, such as speech analysis and modelling; and communication, such as spoken dialogue systems and human-machine interaction, with broad as well as deep insights in cognitive science and speech sciences such as phonetics, prosody and spoken interaction.

For the 2 months of residency, Cummins will take part in the everyday activities at the division of Speech, Music and Hearing, which will include, in the summer of 2022, research and experiments taking place in KTH Interaction and Robotics Labs, which are now being build at the ground floor of LV24. His grounding in embodied and enactive approaches to cognition, together with an empirical focus on joint speech (chant), will provide an underexplored suite of considerations that may inform and perturb ongoing research.

Cummins will also give a course that is relevant and useful to all of the Speech, Music and Hearing staff, from PhD students to faculty, as well as to many others.

Contact: fred.cummins@ucd.ie