iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 09/07/2026

So pretty excited about Fall Voice this year‼️‼️ 1 podium accepted and *won an award* for being the best measurement / outcomes science abstract submitted 2 posters accepted And also now an invited speaker for the Advanced Track SLP course to discuss our work into laryngoresponders 😊😊

Best measurement / outcomes science
Brett Welch, PhD, CCC-SLP (Podium) – “A critical examination of the psychometric properties of the VHI-10: Are we measuring what we think we’re measuring?”

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 18/06/2026

I never walked my PhD graduation, so I never got hooded Two years later, hopped onto a boat with my advisor, and got hooded where the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela Rivers join in front of the iconic Pittsburgh skyline - much cooler experience than getting hooded on stage

Me and my PhD advisor in the middle of the rivers on a boat with the Pittsburgh skyline and bridges in the background wearing graduation gowns with her beginning to place the hood over my head

Selfie of the two of us on the water in front of the Pittsburgh skyline wearing our graduation gowns

Me on the boat wearing normal clothes and a trucker hat with the Pittsburgh bridges in the background

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 20/02/2026

Well it's been about a month I've tracked the number of times Outlook requires me to log in to my email every morning since January 21 Each attempt represents a correct password entered (incorrect entries did not count) Today holds the record with 38 attempts @microsoft.com

A figure with two panels
Top panel: line plot over time with x-axis beginning on January 21 through February 20. The height of the dots correspond to the Number of Correct Password Entries (y-axis), and has an additional line representing a smoothing function over time

Bottom panel: A histogram with an overlaid density distribution line to represent the number of correct password entries required, with most of the histogram distribution being between 1-10, with several notable outliers above 15 and all the way to almost 40

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 04/02/2026

Why yes, I did have to enter in my password 26 times this morning to log in to my email - how could you tell? @microsoft.com

Aubrey Plaza in White Lotus looking peeved, captioned "breathes deeply"

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 03/10/2025

I'm very excited to announce that our poster won 2nd place at the Fall Voice Conference this past week! Thank you to Jeffrey Girard, Joel Sprunger, and everyone else on the team for this exciting project! #research #voice #ptsd

Scientific Poster: Acoustic Features of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in a Non-Voice-Disorder Sample

Heading: People with PTSD demonstrate increased vocal hyperfunction (lower H1-H2) and decreased pitch variability compared to people who have experienced a traumatic event but do not have PTSD

Background: Experiencing a traumatic event sometimes precedes the onset of primary muscle tension dysphonia
(MTD). However, our clinical understanding of voice-trauma relationship is largely informed by working with patients seeking treatment after they develop a problem with their voice. This study examines the acoustic features of people
diagnosed with (n = 52) and without (n = 40) post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), all of whom have experienced a
DSM-5 Criterion A traumatic event and are not seeking treatment for problems with their voice.

Plot 1) Dot and whisker plot - All participants exhibited lower CPPS
during the Impact Statement

Plot 2) Dot and whisker plot - People with PTSD demonstrated significantly lower H1-H2 scores compared to controls, especially during the Impact Statement

Plot 3) Dot and whisker plot - People with PTSD demonstrated significantly less pitch variability on both tasks compared to controls

Methods:
Two groups, all of whom experienced a DSM-5 Criterion A traumatic event; n=52 diagnosed with PTSD, n=40 not diagnosed with PTSD

Both groups provided two 10-min recording task - 1) trauma account, describing the event in detail; 2) Impact statement, describing how this event has since impacted their life (beliefs, relationships, etc)

Audio files were processed and extracted CPPS, H1-H2, & SD pitch

Discussion: Although all participants experienced a traumatic event, people with PTSD exhibited lower H1-H2, an acoustic correlate of increased vocal hyperfunction. These findings provide novel insight into a putative pathway from a traumatic event to developing MTD, by way of habituating phonatory behaviors associated with vocal hyperfunction

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 15/09/2025

Interested in a PhD in Communication Sciences & Disorders? Register for our upcoming Virtual Information Session! Learn more about the University of Houston's PhD program at uh.edu/class/comd/p...

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 18/07/2025

I’m so grateful for my time here at KU’s Department of Psychology! I’ve been so lucky to meet some amazing colleagues and friends. I’m looking forward to the next chapter and for the inevitable future collaborations ^_^

A group photo of Brett with colleagues from KU’s Department of Psychology standing in front of some plants and a fence outside at a brewery

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 21/04/2025

I'm very excited to officially announce that I'll be joining the University of Houston's Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders' faculty this fall! What's a piece of advice or wisdom that you were told or wish you had been told going into your first Assistant Professor position? 😅

University of Houston letterhead

April 7, 2025
Brett Welch
[redacted address]

Dear Brett Welch,

Upon the recommendation of the search committee and with the approval of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, I am pleased to offer you a position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Houston.

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 15/01/2025

🚨Preprint alert!🚨 Integrating Advances in Personality Science to Re-Examine the Trait Theory of Voice Disorders (TTVD) We re-investigated the TTVD using a five-factor model of personality in pts dx w/ muscle tension dysphonia (MTD) and phonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction (PVH) osf.io/preprints/os...

Dot and whisker plot displaying group level differences for personality traits

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 22/11/2024

For a second I thought Pitt was too, but turns out CMU is but I guess a picture of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning was prettier 😂😅

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 16/11/2024

If you see this, please repost with a favorite photo of the sky that you've taken recently

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 13/11/2024

Empirically, no But vibe-wise, sure

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 11/11/2024

Asked ChatGPT to use what it knows about me to draw a picture of my life and this is what I got 😅

AI generated image of a messy desk with a laptop open and lines of code (?) with multiple posters saying “SPEECH PROCESSING” and others saying “CPP”, “MFCC” and one about job postings

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 10/11/2024

My puppers likely has degenerative myelopathy, but please enjoy this picture of him in his cute new orange crocs

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 10/11/2024

Trying to make the permanent switch to Bluesky

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 28/10/2024

Dressed up as my favorite linguist for Halloween

Brett taking a mirror selfie wearing an outfit resembling Milo Thatch from the movie Atlantis

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 19/11/2023

been avoiding social media to focus on writing, but here are my contributions to the latest discourse

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 04/10/2023

Both fascinated & extremely disturbed by the successful marketing of “alpha” male ideology & merchandise A guy at the gym wearing a “this is what an alpha looks like” t-shirt Now, Ms. Thing… A) if you have to advertise it… real beta behavior B) toxic masculinity is a prison

Reaction image - Scooby Doo standing on hind legs wearing an orange dress with a disgusted facial expression

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 29/09/2023

And I enjoy memes, hiking, cooking, making kombucha, and doing long-form improv

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 29/09/2023

Let me introduce myself I'm Brett, a PhD candidate & voice txpist focused on the psych aspects of voice & its disorders- #personality #identity #trauma My research interests are at the intersection of #PsychSci & voice/communication I'm looking for a post-doc in quant psych to further my training

Brett and other speech-language pathologist with backs towards camera performing a laryngoscopy on a patient obstructed from view. On the left of the image a display of the patient's vocal folds during the exam

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Brett, PhD, CCC-SLP @brett-welch.me · 28/09/2023

My advisor sent me this meme and I had a hearty chuckle Bluesky needs more memes #academia #PhDchat

Meme: woman yelling and aggressively pointing at cat with a sour face format with the caption

First panel - “My advisor” above woman with speech bubble “that’s a terrible sentence”

Next panel - “Me” above the cat with speech bubble “you wrote that sentence”

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