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Northwestern School of Communication

Joseph C. Y. Lau

Research Assistant Professor

Area(s) of Expertise

Autism, Cognitive Neuroscience of Speech and Language, Computational Linguistics, Speech Perception
Joseph C. Y. Lau

Joseph C. Y. Lau, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University. He received his PhD. in Linguistics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and completed post-doctoral training in Developmental Psychology and Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University. Dr. Lau’s doctoral and postdoctoral research employs neurophysiological, behavioral, and acoustic analytic methods in consonance with machine learning techniques to understand the roles that neuroplasticity plays in speech and language processing in infancy, typical development, and autism. 

Dr. Lau’s most recent research program focuses on identifying the mechanistic underpinnings of speech and language characteristics of autism. In the Neurodevelopment Diversity Lab at Northwestern University, Dr. Lau utilizes computational linguistic and broader artificial intelligence- (AI-)based analytic approaches to identify fine-grained underlying mechanisms pertaining to speech, language, and neurophysiology that cascade into communicative difficulties in autism and genetically related phenotypes. 

Education

PhD in Linguistics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 

Publications

Publications list