Undergraduate researcher in computational linguistics at the University of Washington.
Focused on speech technology, phonetics, and building tools that work for all speakers.
Education
BA in Linguistics with Departmental Honors
- GPA: 3.82/4.0 (in-major 3.91)
- Linguistics: Phonetics, Phonology I, Syntax I & II, Introduction to Computational Linguistics
- Computer Science: Data Structures & Algorithms, Machine Learning
- Math: Calculus I–III, Matrix Algebra, Probability I
Research Experience
Advisor: Dr. Richard Wright · University of Washington
- Conducted fieldwork in Serbia and Croatia, collecting speech data from Ekavian and Ijekavian dialect speakers.
- Applied forced alignment to analyze phone segmentation, revealing systematic palatalization differences across dialects.
- Identified limitations of standard forced aligners for dialectal variation, informing best practices for low-resource speech processing.
Advisor: Dr. Andrew Hedding · University of Washington
- Documented tonal structure and syntax through fieldwork with native speakers, contributing to language preservation efforts.
- Transcribed dictionary entries using narrow IPA and recorded audio for an open-access community resource.
- Developed PHP scripts to process and display dictionary data, improving web interface functionality.
Advisor: Dr. Alicia Wassink · UW Sociolinguistics Laboratory
- Analyzed ASR system performance across Gulf Coast English dialect speakers, identifying systematic recognition failures.
- Documented racial and dialectal bias in automatic speech recognition, contributing to equity-focused research.
- Presented findings demonstrating how sociolinguistic variation is unaccounted for in commercial speech technology.
Advisor: Dr. Richard Wright · UW Phonetics Laboratory
- Examined acoustic variation in implosives (Swahili, Hausa) and ejectives (Georgian) using large-scale corpus data.
- Hand-corrected Montreal Forced Aligner outputs for non-pulmonic consonants, improving segmentation accuracy.
- Co-authored book chapter demonstrating significant variation from canonical phonetic descriptions.
Publications
Wright, R., Tucker, B. V., Ahn, E. P., Rae, B., & Saunders, A. (in preparation).
Variation in glottalic consonants. Manuscript in preparation.
Talks
Forthcoming
Saunders, A. (May 2026). Palatalization Contrasts in Two Serbo-Croatian Dialects.
2026 UW Undergraduate Research Symposium. Seattle, Washington.
Kaikkonen, H., Saunders, A. (May 2026). San Martín Peras Mixtec Dictionary Project.
2026 UW Undergraduate Research Symposium. Seattle, Washington.
Fajardo, M., Saunders, A. (May 2026). A Sociophonetic Evaluation of Mississippi Gulf Coast English.
2026 UW Undergraduate Research Symposium. Seattle, Washington.
Past
Rae, B., Osborn, C., & Saunders, A. (May 2025). Implosive Variability in Central African Languages.
2025 UW Undergraduate Research Symposium. Seattle, Washington.
Skills
Methods
Fieldwork, acoustic/spectrographic analysis, forced alignment, sociolinguistic interviews, generative syntax, mixed-effects regression, ANOVA
Tools
Praat, Montreal Forced Aligner, ELAN, Python, R, Java, PHP, LaTeX, SQL
Languages
Native: English
Working Proficiency: Spanish
Research Proficiency: Serbo-Croatian, ASL