Fall Semester Wrap-up

New lab photos dropped!!

This semester has felt like one long inhale.

At the start of the Fall, I knew I was entering a transition year, but I do not think I fully appreciated just how many “firsts,” “lasts,” and quiet milestones it would hold. As the semester comes to a close, I find myself grateful for the pace I was forced to keep, the people I connected with, and the clarity that has started to emerge as I move into the final stretch of my PhD.

One of the most affirming moments of the semester was being recognized as a Distinguished Early Career Professional by ASHA. This semester also marked an important shift in my professional identity as I began mentoring my first clinical fellow through her CFY in the schools. Supporting someone through their transition from graduate student to practicing clinician has been both grounding and motivating. It has reminded me why strong mentorship matters, particularly in school-based settings where clinicians are asked to do so much with so little. This role has pushed me to think more intentionally about how research, advocacy, and clinical practice intersect in meaningful ways.

On the research front, dissertation writing started slowly for me and I felt lost at times. There is something uniquely daunting about turning a few ideas into a coherent document that represents a connected body of work. Over the course of the semester, however, my momentum has built. I have collected the perceptual data for my dissertation and am now actively working through the analyses for that chapter after forcing myself to get through 2 chapters with purely production data. Watching the data take shape has been energizing and has helped sharpen the larger story I want the dissertation to tell about the acoustics and perception of SSD. Beyond the dissertation, this semester included two technical session talks at ASHA, where I stayed busy presenting work, meeting new people, and catching up with old friends.

I also had the opportunity to teach consonant acoustics for the first time through guest lectures in Tessa’s S111 phonetics course. Teaching difficult material like this, especially for the first time, forced me to slow down, clarify my own understanding, and think carefully about how complex concepts can be digested by students.

As fulfilling as this semester has been, the Spring brings a new set of challenges and transitions.

On a personal level, my wife and I are preparing to welcome a baby in March. This is, without question, the most meaningful and life-altering project on the horizon. At the same time, March is also the target for finishing the dissertation, which has been my academic “baby” for the past year.

Professionally, the Spring will include applying for postdocs, defending the dissertation, and preparing to transition out of the Speech Perception Lab and away from Bloomington, a place we have come to love deeply. Leaving a lab and a city that have shaped my academic skills and discovery of my personal identity leaves me both sad and optimistic for the next place. It marks the end of a chapter that has been formative in ways I will always carry with me.

As I look ahead to my final semester in the PhD, I feel a mix of excitement, uncertainty, and gratitude. This journey has never been just about finishing a degree. It has been about learning how to ask better questions, how to support others, and how to build a career rooted in curiosity, care, and community. The next few months will be full of new and scary milestones, and that feels like exactly the right way to end this chapter.