Amber Galvano

she/they
amber_galvano@berkeley.edu | 586.741.9085
3040 Telegraph Ave, Apt #2
Berkeley, CA 94705
https://ambergalvano.weebly.com/
Education

University of California, Berkeley

● Ph.D. student in the Department of Linguistics Fall 2023 – Present
○ Research interests: sociophonetics (speech & sexuality), language documentation
(Lobi, Limba), models of the phonetics-phonology interface (Q-theory, Cue-based
Features), Spanish Linguistics (sound change in Andalusian, Porteño)
○ Qualifying Paper 2: Revising the sociophonetics of sexuality in English
○ Advisor: Dr. Keith Johnson

● MA, Department of Linguistics Conferred Fall 2023

○ Qualifying Paper 1: The Karuk -ahi construction (advised by Dr. Line Mikkelson)

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Class of 2020

● College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
○ BA, Spanish and Cognitive Science (Language & Cognition track) with High Conferred Fall 2020
Distinction
○ Honors Thesis (Highest Honors): Sound Change in Western Andalusian Spanish: An
Acoustic Analysis of Phonemic Voiceless Stops
■ Advisor: Dr. Nicholas Henriksen
■ Awarded Agnes Nicolini Vincenti Award for an Outstanding Honors Thesis
● School of Music, Theater, and Dance
○ BMA, Vocal Performance with Highest Honors Conferred Fall 2020
■ Studio of Professor Stephen West
● GPA: 3.92

IES Abroad / Center for Global and Intercultural Study (University of Michigan) Summer 2019
● Spanish Language & Culture (Madrid, Spain); 6 weeks

Relevant work & research experience

Graduate Student Instructor, LINGUIS 100 (Intro to Linguistic Science) Spring 2024
● Instructor: Dr. Lev Michael
● Taught and held office hours for three discussion sections (51 students)

Graduate Research Assistant, PI: Dr. Hannah Sande Spring – Fall 2023
● Revised and edited collaborative manuscript on documentation and analysis of Lobi (Gur, West
Africa)

Graduate Research Assistant, PI: Dr. Keith Johnson Spring 2023

● Processed acoustic data from ECog patient studies, collected at UCSF
● Developed computational acoustic analysis methods for use in modeling speech production and
perception

Mentor, Linguistics Research Apprentice Practicum (LRAP): Lobi documentation Spring 2024
● Weekly supervision and training of three apprentices on the basics of the Lobi language;
recording, annotation, and processing of audio-visual data; elicitation and translation methods;
website maintenance

Mentor, LRAP: Spanish sociophonetics Fall 2023, Spring 2024

● Weekly supervision and training of two apprentices in acoustic phonetics data processing and
analysis; focus on informal Buenos Aires Spanish
 Mentor, LRAP: English speech & sexuality Spring 2023
● Weekly supervision and training of two apprentices in sociolinguistic interviewing, forced
alignment, phonetic transcription, acoustic analysis, and data visualization

Linguistic Partner at Breath of Life Archival Institute, Konkow Maidu May 2022
● Consolidated and analyzed varying orthographic/phonetic representations of the Konkow
language, worked through basic morphology and syntax with community members

Research Assistant at UM Speech Production Lab Summer ‘19 – Fall ‘21,

● Spanish speech lab, co-directed by Drs. Nicholas Henriksen & Lorenzo García-Amaya Summer ‘22
● Worked collaboratively with undergraduate, graduate, and faculty researchers
● Headed interdisciplinary group projects, coded participant data, analyzed phonetic data in Praat
and Fission, designed experiments in Qualtrics, graphed data and completed inferential statistics
in R, drafted and edited academic papers

Counselor at Michigan Math and Science Scholars Summer 2018

● Organized, facilitated, and executed group social activities for high school students
● Chaperoned students on group outings and field trips
● Served as personal/professional mentor to students

Publications
Galvano, A (Forthcoming). A Q- and Exemplar-Theoretic approach to cross-dialect Spanish <st> Accepted (Jan. 2024)
production. Proceedings of WCFFL41.

Henriksen, N., García-Amaya, L., Fischer, M., Czapla, C., Dakki, N., Galvano, A., Khansa, S., Maly, E., September 2023
Phillips, Z., Premkumar, V., Topouzian, S., & Wiaduck, T. (2023). Perceptions of speaker origin and social
characteristics of three varieties of Iberian Spanish. Journal of Linguistic Geography.

Galvano, A. & Henriksen, N. (2023) Cross-dialectal comparison of /st/ clusters in Spanish: Implications for August 2023
sound change. Proceedings of the 20th ICPhS.

Henriksen, N., & Galvano, A. & Fischer, M. (2023). Sound change in Western Andalusian Spanish: April 2023
Investigation into the actuation and propagation of post-aspirated stops. Journal of Phonetics.

Henriksen, N., Greenley, S., & Galvano, A. (2022). Sociophonetic investigation of the Spanish alveolar trill December 2022
/r/ in two canonical-trill varieties. Language and Speech.

Phillips, Z., Galvano, A., & Maly, E. (2020, August 12). Socially Distant Yet Intellectually Close. Inside August 2020
Higher Ed.

Peer-reviewed conference presentations

19th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon19) June 2024
● Poster: NC voicing dissimilation in Tonko Limba. With Limba speaker Daniel Ibrahim Kamara.

Acoustical Society of America (ASA186) May 2024

● Poster: Revisiting the sociophonetics of sexuality in spontaneous speech

Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL55) May 2024

● Talk: Post-nasal devoicing in Limba-Tonko. With Limba speaker Daniel Ibrahim Kamara.

20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS20) June 2023

● ​Talk: Cross-dialectal comparison of /st/ clusters in Spanish: Implications for sound change

Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL54) May 2023

● Talk: Quantifying the Lobi vowel space. With Lobi speaker Sansan Claude Hien.
West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL41) April 2023
● Talk: A Q- and Exemplar-Theoretic approach to cross-dialect Spanish <st> production

Phonetics and Phonology in Europe (PaPE 2021) January 2021

● Talk: Phonemic Voiceless Stops in Western Andalusian Spanish: The confluence of post-aspiration
and intervocalic voicing. With Nicholas Henriksen.

Mid-Continental Phonetics & Phonology (MidPhon25) December 2020

● Talk: Phonemic Voiceless Stops in Western Andalusian Spanish: The confluence of post-aspiration
and intervocalic voicing. With Nicholas Henriksen.

Other presentations
RLL alumnus invited talk: What you can do after completing the Spanish Language Requirement? June 2021
● Presented to current undergraduates about opportunities related to the Spanish Major at U-M

Phorum (UCB Phonetics, Phonology, and Psycholinguistics forum) invited talk November 2022
● A Q-theoretic approach to cross-dialect Spanish <st> production

Manuscripts & community-oriented materials

Galvano, A. & Sande, H. (Under Review). Lobi. JIPA (Illustrations of the IPA). January 2024

Galvano, A. (In progress). Quantifying the Lobi vowel space. In H. Sande & S. C. Hien. (Eds.), Aspects of In progress
Lobi Grammar.

Galvano, A. (In progress). Phonetics of Lobi glottalized consonants. In H. Sande & S. C. Hien. (Eds.), ”
Aspects of Lobi Grammar.

Galvano, A. & Sande. H. (In progress). Segmental phonology. In H. Sande & S. C. Hien. (Eds.), Aspects of ”
Lobi Grammar.

An audio-visual learner-oriented corpus on Lobi cultural topics (website forthcoming) 2024

Service
Co-organizer, UC Berkeley PhonLab Spring 2024–present
● Responsible for lab communications and meeting logistics/facilitation

Session chair & organizing committee member, WCCFL42 Fall 2023 –

● Chaired phonetics-phonology interface session Spring 2024
● Drafted call for papers, secured grant funding, assisted with logistics of conference

Reviewer, Underrepresented Minority Linguistics Application Review Program Fall 2023

● Reviewed underrepresented minority candidates’ applications to linguistics graduate programs
across North America

Co-organizer, Phorum (Phonetics, Phonology & Psycholinguistics forum) 2023–present

● Invited, introduced, and socially hosted weekly guest speakers at home department
● Maintained forum website and email listserv

Student Representative, Faculty Search Committee Spring 2022

● Evaluated candidates for open-rank Professor of Phonetics (UC Berkeley Linguistics)

Student Representative, Faculty Search Committee Fall 2022

● Evaluated candidates for lecturer in Phonetics (UC Berkeley Linguistics)

Co-organizer, SLaB (Sociolinguistics Lab at Berkeley) 2022-2023

● Organized yearly meeting schedule, selected and contacted speakers, compiled reading list,
facilitated biweekly meetings
Reader, Lucero (UCB graduate Spanish journal) 2022
● Read and reviewed anonymous submission in Spanish sociophonetics

Member, Colloquium Committee (UC Berkeley) 2021-2022

● Helped select and host colloquium speakers and organized scheduling related to talks

Student Representative, RLL Working Group on Gender Diversity (University of Michigan) 2021
● Student representative on committee aiming to address issues of gender diversity in Romance
language classrooms
● Created template for non-binary language modifications in five languages, published online

Awards & honors

Language Revitalization Grant (California Language Archive) ($1,800) 2024
Oswalt Endangered Languages Grant ($3,500) 2024
Graduate Diversity Pilot Grant ($2,715) 2024
Tinker Field Research Grant ($2,500) 2023
UC Berkeley Regents Fellowship 2021–2023
Agnes Nicolini Vincenti Award for an Outstanding Honors Thesis 2021
University of Michigan Honors 2016 –2020
James B. Angell Scholar 2018, 2020

Languages & skills

Spanish (advanced)
Lobi, Tonko Limba (research)
Electroglottography (EGG)
Praat, LaTeX, Python, R, ELAN, Gorilla, Excel