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Thea

@theaknowles.bsky.social
246 followers 177 following 104 posts

👩‍🏫Asst. Prof in CSD at Michigan State U (the green one 💚🤍). 👩‍🔬She/her. 🎓MClSc/PhD at Western Ontario. 🗣️ Speech research: Parkinson’s disease, motor speech, speech acoustics, speech tools. 🇨🇦🇺🇸

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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
This year, for the first time, someone in my undergrad anatomy class FINALLY chose to "do a make-up tutorial demonstrating the muscles of facial expression" for their assigned creative project and I am STOKED. (the pic is a youtube tutorial I show for inspo, not a student!)
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SONiC Lab MSU @soniclabmsu.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
It's almost time for MSU's annual Science Festival! The SONiC Lab will be located in Room 2201 of the STEM Teaching and Learning Facility on April 5th and 6th from 11:00 AM-4:00 PM. Come "see your speech" and learn how acoustics can be used in healthcare applications! We hope to see you there!
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SONiC Lab MSU @soniclabmsu.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
It was great to connect with our community @msuscifest.bsky.social ! At the “see your speech” station participants saw their speech and learned how speech acoustics help diagnose neurological conditions that affect speech! Baby Enzo joined in, enjoying his first of many Science Fests to come!
Sara Cook, Chloe Glabach, Dr. Thea Knowles, Baby Enzo, Maura Philipponeparticipants at the "see your speech" stationparticipants at the "see your speech " station
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Margaret Crane, PhD @margaretcrane.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
And the funding announcement for diversity supplements now has been updated to expire today. Supplements are so important to the careers of junior scientists. This is crushing for post docs and early career faculty grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
I just registered for my third year of the ASH Foundation 5k (Aug 31)! The ASH Foundation is a big supporter of early career research in CSD and I always appreciate having an external motivator to run :) runsignup.com/Race/MD/Rock...
runsignup.com
ASHFoundation’s 5th Annual Virtual 5K Walk/Run: Sparking Innovation with Every Stride
The ASHFoundation’s 5th Annual Virtual 5K Walk/Run: Sparking Innovation with Every Stride is on Saturday August 31, 2024.
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Matthew Winn @matthewwinn.bsky.social · 31/05/2024
When a talker repeats the same vowel sequence 34 times in quick succession, a good phonetician simply can’t let that opportunity pass. I present to you: the definitive acoustic analysis of Ari Melber's pronunciation of "guilty"
chart showing measurements of fundamental frequency (pitch) and formant values for 34 iterations of the word "guilty" spoken by Ari Melber when reading the verdict
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RedPen/BlackPen @redpenblackpen.bsky.social · 30/05/2024
ToDo list? More like ToNotDo list, amirite? New cartoon.
Cartoon titled: Annotated ToDo List
A sheet of paper with 'ToDo List' across the top and a bunch of numbered entries (that are not readable). Different entries are grouped with annotations to the side:
- things I need to do today (crossed out, replaced with) that are overdue
- something I wrote down that's already done
- things that have been on my list for days (crossed out, replaced with) weeks
- things that actually require multiple ToDo entries to complete
- No idea what this one is
- these are mission critical
- figure out what the 'mission' is
- full disclosure: these will never be completed and I totally know that
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 28/05/2024
That feeling when your Sentence Intelligibility Test sentence list sounds more like a melancholic poem.
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Angelika Stefan @ephemeralidea.bsky.social · 23/05/2024
Are you an Early Career Researcher and unsure about how to write a peer review? Or simply curious about how other people write theirs? In our new panel discussion series at @lmu-osc.bsky.social we'll discuss peer reviewing practices - you can join online or in person! #AcademicSky #metasci #EduSky
MAKING TACIT KNOWLEDGE OPEN – A Panel Discussion Series
PART I: PRACTICES AND PRACTICALITIES OF PEER REVIEW (MAY 27, hybrid)

Panel Members: Marlene Altenmüller (Social Psychology), Peter Edelsbrunner (Learning Sciences), Nathan Evans (Computational Modeling), Florian Pargent (Psychological Methods), Tobias Staudigl (Cognitive Neuropsychology), Charlotte Wittekind (Clinical Psychology)
Most researchers spend a significant amount of time and effort on peer reviewing. However, there is large variability in peer reviewing practices and little guidance for early career researchers on the topic. For this panel discussion, we assemble experts from different fields of psychology 

When: May 27, 16:00-18:00
Where: Leopoldstr. 13, Room 3322 and via Zoom 
Zoom details: Meeting ID: 691 6996 4466; Passcode: 706322
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 14/05/2024
Men are kiki and women are bouba at Costco, apparently. #linguistics
Mens and women's restroom signs. Men are in a triangle and women are in a circle.
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tj mahr 🤘 @tjmahr.com · 03/05/2024
notes on citing R and R Packages #rstats www.tjmahr.com/r-package-ci...
tjmahr.com
Notes on Citing R and R Packages
Who, what, where, when and which
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 30/04/2024
So many of my #praat scripts that I continue to build/tweak have become this kind of frankensteined mash-up of old and new syntactic norms, habits I've revised or broken, and stylistic preferences that very clearly age-grade my coding journey 😆
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SONiC Lab MSU @soniclabmsu.bsky.social · 18/04/2024
It was wonderful to connect with our community in a fun and engaging way at MSU’s annual Science Fest this past weekend! We had crafts, resources, and lots of education related to speech and #parkinsonsdisease. #womeninstem #scicomm
Dr.Knowles helping a little boy at the “SEE YOUR SPEECH” station.Maura at a table with lots of local Parkinson’s Disease resources.Aishwarya giving a presentation about the effects of Parkinson’s Disease on speech.Brooke at the craft table ready to help the littles make a brain hat or paper larynx.
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 11/04/2024
Very proud of our two undergraduate students who will be presenting at our University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF) at #MichiganState! #SciComm #womeninSTEM #SLP2B
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SONiC Lab MSU @soniclabmsu.bsky.social · 11/04/2024
Hello World, and what better way to kick off our lab's social media than acknowledging World Parkinson's Day (April 11). The Speech Outcomes in Neurogenic Communication (SONiC) Lab focuses on speech communication in neurodegenerative diseases like #Parkinsonsdisease.
This picture is our lab at the finish line of the Michigan Parkinson Foundation Hero Walk last September!
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 11/04/2024
Our lab is presenting at the #MSUSciFest this Sunday and we couldn't be more excited! We had SO much fun last year and are looking forward to connecting with the community again this weekend. 🗓️ April 14th, 1 - 4pm 📍STEM Teaching & Learning Facility, Room 2201 sciencefestival.msu.edu/Event/View/67
Promo for the Science Fest: What can speech signals tell us about neurological disease?

How do we produce speech?
Speech occurs as a result of several highly coordinated movements between our lips, tongue, and vocal folds, all of which are directed by our brain. Some kinds of neurological diseases can affect movements in subtle or not-so-subtle ways, and these changes can affect how speech sounds as a result. 
Sometimes, speech changes can be the first indicator of a neurological condition such as Parkinson’s disease. 

How do we measure these changes? 
One way is to measure how other people hear and perceive speech differences, but another way is to directly measure the acoustic properties of speech itself!

Session will include:

1. Hands-on demonstration showcasing how we can visualize and analyze our own acoustic speech signal

2. Special considerations in speech changes that are common in Parkinson’s disease.
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 04/04/2024
I sort of succeeded but also I mostly hacked it because SquareSpace is weird (but more more user friendly for student RAs than blogdown, hence the shift to squarespace).
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 02/04/2024
I've finally got the chance to use #Autoscore in #rstats (by @healthandstats.bsky.social) to calculate speech intelligibility and it's so easy I could cry. 😍
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 02/04/2024
Very proud of Kelly Gates (MA student @ #UBuffalo) for leading our two recent companion publications. These report on speech-language pathologists’ perspectives of the use of speech amplification devices for managing hypophonia in #Parkinsonsdisease in #ASHAjournals #AJSLP! 🧪 👩‍🔬 🧠📈 #SLPeeps #SciComm
Clip of the journal article
Research Article
Speech Amplification Device Usage for the Management of Hypophonia: A Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists 
Kelly Gates, Thea Knowles, Helen Mach, Jeff Higginbotham (& author affiliations)Clip of the journal article
Research Article
Clinical Insights Into the Use of Speech Amplification Devices for Managing Hypophonia: Interviews With Speech-Language Pathologists 
Kelly Gates, Thea Knowles, Helen Mach, Jeff Higginbotham, Thea Holder (& author affiliations)
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 29/03/2024
Our trivia team did poorly on a question this week in which we were asked to name all elements with double L's. I made us a cheat sheet based on this gem for next time.
XKCD periodic table comic, annotated to include all elements with double L's in their name, and additionally "heLLLLLLLium" which we entered on our trivia card but did not get credit for....
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Dr Mircea Zloteanu 🌺🌞🍃 @mzloteanu.bsky.social · 08/03/2024
#statstab #45 Visualizing Hierarchical Models Thoughts: One of the coolest visualisation websites for mixed effects models I had saved. #stats #mixedeffects #hierarchicalmodels #rstats #MLM mfviz.com/hierarchical...
mfviz.com
A Visual Introduction to Hierarchical Models
A visual explanation of multi-level modeling
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 06/03/2024
Does anyone have any excellent resources for teaching spreadsheet/Excel basics to students? I like this paper, but am hoping to find a tutorial or two to share as well. 🧪👩‍🔬 #academicsky #SciComm #stats #phdsky #OpenScience
Title page of the following article:
Karl W. Broman & Kara H. Woo (2018) Data Organization in Spreadsheets, The American Statistician, 72:1, 2-10
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 03/03/2024
My ineffable mother plunged into a frozen lake this morning in queen's attire to raise funds for accessible outdoor recreation with her team, the Ashfield Ice Queens (all women over 60 who swim together daily, even through the winter). Team page: alloutadventures.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/a...
5 queens walk a runway on an iced over lake that leads to a small pool into which they will momentarily plunge.
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 02/03/2024
🗣️💬 I think we can all agree the answer is #praat
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 02/03/2024
#️⃣👀
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Q. Pheevr @q.pheevr.ca · 14/02/2024
Roses are yellowish; violets are blue— Deuteranopia gives them that hue. Or roses are red and violets grey, If tritanopia has any say. But they’ve different shapes and different smells, Which means colour-blind folks can distinguish them well.
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 15/02/2024
We may not yet have the social media vitality of the Bird Site of Yore, but I am so looking forward to seeing many #slpeeps in real life at the motor speech conference next week 🙏
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 14/01/2024
👀 Love me some easy markdown table infrastructure.
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 05/01/2024
After coming back from being fully unplugged for a bit at the end of the year, I'm feeling revved up and ready to get back to my lab. Here's a wrap-up of our last year - love working with these folks! casa-lab.com/post/newslet...
8 people (students from my lab, me, and some friends) in green and white T-shirts smiling around a large sign that says FINISH and has the Michigan Parkinson Foundation logo. This was at the end of the MI Parkinson Hero Walk.
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 02/12/2023
Found in the #dataviz archives: 25 years of maple sap production in my hometown of Ashfield, MA
Figure titled 25 years of maple sap in Ashfield with 25 rows depicting sap production from 1992 to 2019. X axis depicts day of the year and spans Feb to April, y axis depicts lo to high. Each row has a series of filled rectangles on it showing amount of sap produced over time.
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Cara Stepp (she/her) @carastepp.bsky.social · 12/11/2023
Hi #SLPeeps! Interested in getting your PhD? If you are going to be at the ASHA convention this week, stop by the exhibition hall on Friday the 17th to chat with me, Jenny Zuk, & Kim Crespo about our PhD program at @bostonu.bsky.social! Details here: convention.asha.org/networking/g...
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Claudia Peñaloza @claudiapenaloza.bsky.social · 06/11/2023
If you know someone doing research in #speech #language disorders #aphasia #SLPeeps #neuropsychology who wants to join bluesky and needs an invitation code please let me know! Happy to share one!
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Micah Hirsch, Ph.D. @micahehirsch.bsky.social · 03/11/2023
Also, a friendly reminder that I am on the job market. If you are attending #ASHA2023, I’m open to meeting and discussing any potential openings you or your department have open! #SLPeeps
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 24/10/2023
My mentee just submitted TWO first-author manuscripts (her first first-authored!) and I am just SO INCREDIBLY PROUD of her. ✨Kelly Gates, 2nd year MA student, hopefully soon to be PhD student and one day working in a CSD department near you. Watch out for her, #SLPeeps! 🤩
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
Zotero users: I have a lot of entries that don't have PDFs (carry over from when I imported my old bib file). I've been adding them one at a time as I need them, but is there a more efficient way to do this, or to "grab" PDFs from the doi? #academicsky
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Dr. Joscelin Rocha-Hidalgo 🇧🇴🏳️‍🌈 @joscelinrocha.com · 27/09/2023
Sharing this R resources database with y'all! For the past 4 years, I have been accumulating resources (mainly free ones) for new & advanced #Rlearners in their programming journey. Feel free to share! resourcesdatabase.com #RStats #RResources #learningR #DataScience #Python #R
resourcesdatabase.com
resouRces - resouRces: Database of Resources to Learn & Teach R
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 02/10/2023
I was a weird mix of "very moody emo kid" and "semi-elite athlete in a niche sport nobody knew anything about." I hung out mostly with climbers & gym rats & only a handful of my peers, which just enhanced my weirdness. Pretended not to give a shit but definitely gave lots of shits about everything.
moody emo 15 year old thea making an early 2000's attempt at duck-face with heavy eyeliner, curtain bangs, a green hoodie, scarf, & blazer standing next to a phone booth.16 year old thea hanging on to a rock wall with feet cut and holding on for dear life in front of a crowd of onlookers.
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 30/09/2023
Our MSU #SLPeeps team had SUCH a great time at the MI Parkinson Foundation Hero Walk this morning supporting the cause, learning about Parkinson's, and sharing info about speech research & resources. #SciEngage 👩🏼‍🔬 🧪 🧠
10 people on a green lawn in front of a green building wearing MSU green/white and MI Parkinson Foundation gear. Despite what it looks like my knee was unharmed in the taking of this photo.A photo-booth style set of 4 photos of a group of 10 people wearing green & white & smiling. Bottom of photo says "Parkinson Hero Walk"
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 30/09/2023
#AuDPeeps in #academia!
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Brielle Stark, PhD {she} @briellestark.bsky.social · 30/09/2023
Indiana University Speech Language and Hearing Sciences Dept is seeking an Associate or Full Prof of #hearing science or #audiology! I love it here & happy to answer questions! indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/20380 #hiring
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 28/09/2023
Support our team of speech researchers, clinicians, and students as we join the 2023 Lansing Parkinson Hero Walk this Saturday! secure.qgiv.com/event/2023la... #SLPeeps #SLP2B #neuroscience 🧪
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 28/09/2023
Join us for the inaugural Stockman Series Symposium on "Shifting Multicultural Perspectives in Communicative Sci & Disorders" on Oct 13 (in person or Zoom). Featuring keynote speaker ✨Dr. Ida Stockman✨ herself and followed by a phenomenal panel lineup. CEUs available for #SLPeeps!
Save the date: Inaugural Stockman Series Symposium.
"Shifting Multicultural Perspectives in Communication Sciences and Disorders: Past, Present, and Future Challenges"

October 13 2023, 1:00 - 5:15 (EST)
Communication Arts & Sciences Building, Room 147, Michigan State University (MSU) OR by Zoom (link provided upon registration).

RSVP to Michelle Inman at shepar51@msu.edu
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 20/09/2023
My #SLP students continue to talk about & use resources from the awesome dataviz guest lecture Micah gave for our #rstats course in CSD last year. Excited to see what's next for them! #academicsky
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 20/09/2023
Shamelessly sharing b/c I want ☕ gear: I subscribe to a monthly coffee service I love (Trade). They're giving away a piece of gear I want and I get more entries if friends sign up for a "free" bag of coffee (i.e., sign up for the service):
s.trdcfe.me
Refer Friends and Get Free Coffee
Refer your friends to the best specialty coffee subscription from the nation’s best roasters on Trade. Fresh coffee roasted to order and delivered right to your door.
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Chris Baraniuk @chrisbaraniuk.com · 19/09/2023
PLEASE RETWEET (or whatever it's called): I want to follow and support fellow science journalists on Bluesky! Help me find them!! Reply to this if you are among that hallowed number. @easternblot.bsky.social @jjbw.bsky.social @eshirin.bsky.social @duncanfyfe.bsky.social @colinschultz.bsky.social
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Matt Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social · 13/09/2023
Deadline 10/1: Asst. prof., U Mass Amherst, Cognition + CogNeuro, area open careers.massachusetts.edu/cw/en-us/job...
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 15/09/2023
Today I played a quiet loop of cocktail noise in the background during a Zoom meeting and hacked my brain into imagining we were all out enjoying drinks together talking logistics at a hip pub instead of in my office alone on Zoom. 10/10 recommend #academia.
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Thea @theaknowles.bsky.social · 15/09/2023
Welcome to Bluesky, we have rules around here: 1. Say it in the street, that's a knock-out 2. But you say it in a skeet, that's a cop-out 3. And I'm just like, "Hey, are you okay?"
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Matt Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social · 15/09/2023
Deadline Oct 31: Assoc prof (entry level tenure track), computational ling., U of Oslo www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...
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