Curriculum Vitæ
Overview
I am a developer of open-source scientific software, and a scientist trained in acoustic phonetics, speech perception, and auditory neuroscience. My interest broadly centers on the perception and representation of speech sounds. I am also a certified Software Carpentry instructor.
Current position: Research Scientist at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, where I lead the development of MNE-Python neuroscience analysis software, and analyze infant and adult magnetoencephalography (MEG) data.
Structured bibliographic information for my research products is available in this BibTeX file.
Academic degrees
- PhD in Linguistics (UW, 2013): “Prosody, intelligibility and familiarity in speech perception” (PDF).
- MA in Linguistics (UW, 2009): “The semantics of implicitly relational predicates” (PDF).
- BS in Neurobiology, BA in Philosophy (UW, 2002).
Other education
Teaching experience
- Instructor: Software Carpentry Workshops “The Unix shell”, “Version control with git”, “Programming with Python”, “R for reproducible scientific analysis” (UW eScience Institute: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019; Benaroya Research Institute: 2020; U. Minnesota: 2022, 2023, 2024).
- Instructor: Introduction to Phonetics (UW: 2010, 2011).
- Teaching Assistant: Introduction to Linguistics, four sections (UW: 2008–2009).
- Co-instructor: “New Majors” proseminar for incoming Philosophy students (UW: 2001, 2002).
Technical skills
- Programming: Python, R, JavaScript, praat, Bash, GNU Make, Octave/MATLAB.
- Scientific computing: git/GitHub, cloud deployment, machine learning, data visualization.
- Research hardware: EEG, MEG, eye tracking, pupillometry, audio processors, microphones.
- Document generation: Sphinx, Jupyter, Pandoc, Markdown, R Markdown, reStructuredText, LaTeX, Beamer, HTML, (S)CSS.
Software & corpora
- Leader (BDFL) of MNE-Python: human neurophysiology analysis. (repo)
- Maintainer of PyData Sphinx Theme: theme for software documentation websites. (repo)
- Co-creator of PHOIBLE: a database of over 3000 phonological inventories. (repo)
- Co-creator of UW/NU Corpus: a 2-dialect, 20-talker corpus of 200 parallel sentences of English.
- Co-creator of expyfun: run psychophysics experiments in Python. (repo)
- Creator of phonR: analyze & visualize vowels in R. (repo | cran)
- Creator of “Praat Semi-Auto”: software to streamline manual measurements in acoustic phonetics, when automated methods are not good enough. (repo)
Peer-reviewed articles (15 total, 6 first-authored)
- Yeatman, McCloy, Caffarra, Clarke, Ender, Gijbels, Joo, et al. (2024). Reading instruction causes changes in category-selective visual cortex. Brain Research Bulletin, 212, 110958. (doi | preprint | repo)
- Clarke, Larson, Peterson, McCloy, Bosseler & Taulu (2022). Improving Localization Accuracy of Neural Sources by Pre-Processing: Demonstration with Infant MEG Data. Frontiers in Neurology, 13. (doi)
- Emmons, Lee, Estes, Dager, Larson, McCloy, St. John, et al. (2022). Auditory attention deployment in young adults with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 52(4), 1752–1761. (doi | preprint)
- O’Brien, McCloy & Yeatman (2019). Categorical phoneme labeling in children with dyslexia does not depend on stimulus duration. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 146(1), 245–255. (doi | preprint | repo)
- McCloy & Lee (2019). Investigating the fit between phonological feature systems and brain responses to speech using EEG. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 34(5), 662–676. (doi | supplement | preprint | repo)
- McCloy, Larson & Lee (2018). Auditory attention switching with listening difficulty: Behavioral and pupillometric measures. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 144(5), 2764–2771. (doi | supplement | preprint | repo)
- O’Brien, McCloy, Kubota & Yeatman (2018). Reading Ability and Phoneme Categorization. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 16842. (doi | preprint | repo)
- McCloy, Lau, Larson, Pratt & Lee (2017). Pupillometry shows the effort of auditory attention switching. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 141(4), 2440–2451. (doi | supplement | preprint | repo)
- Hasegawa-Johnson, Jyothi, McCloy, Mirbagheri, di Liberto, Das, Ekin, et al. (2017). ASR for under-resourced languages from probabilistic transcription. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing, 25(1), 46–59. (doi | preprint | repo)
- McCloy, Larson, Lau & Lee (2016). Temporal alignment of pupillary response with stimulus events via deconvolution. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 139(3), EL57–EL62. (doi | preprint | repo)
- McCloy & Lee (2015). Auditory attention strategy depends on target linguistic properties and spatial configuration. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138(1), 97–114. (doi | preprint | repo)
- McCloy, Wright & Souza (2015). Talker versus dialect effects on speech intelligibility: A symmetrical study. Language and Speech, 58(3), 371–386. (doi | preprint)
- Barrack, McCloy & Wright (2014). Did murmur spread in Pre-Proto-Indo-European? Indogermanische Forschungen: Zeitschrift für Indogermanistik und historische Sprachwissenschaft, 119(1), 149–158. (doi | preprint)
- Souza, Gehani, Wright & McCloy (2013). The advantage of knowing the talker. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 24, 689–700. (doi | preprint)
- Moran, McCloy & Wright (2012). Revisiting population size vs. phoneme inventory size. Language, 88(4), 877–893. (doi | preprint | repo)
Invited talks (3)
- McCloy (2018). Evaluating phonological feature theories against EEG measures of speech perception. Presented at the UBC Linguistics Department, Vancouver, BC.
- McCloy (2017). Pupillometry and Auditory Attention Switching: Methods and Interpretations. Presented at the Pupillometry in Neuroscience Workshop, Boston University Center for Research in Sensory Communication and Emerging Neural Technology, Boston, MA. (slides)
- McCloy (2016). What pupillometry can do for linguistic research. Presented at the UCSB Linguistics Department, Santa Barbara, CA.
Conf. proceedings, preprints, working papers & tech. reports (6)
- Westner, McCloy, Larson, Gramfort, Katz, Smith, Delorme, et al. (2024). Cycling on the Freeway: The Perilous State of Open Source Neuroscience Software. (doi | preprint)
- McCloy, Wright & Souza (2014). Modeling intrinsic intelligibility variation: Vowel-space size and structure. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 18, 060007. (doi)
- McCloy (2014). Phonetic effects of morphological structure in Indonesian vowel reduction. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 12, 060009. (doi | preprint)
- McCloy (2013). Corpus-based productivity measures of English -er agentives and instrumentals. UW Working Papers in Linguistics, 31. (paper)
- McCloy (2012). Vowel normalization and plotting with the phonR package. Seattle, WA: Technical Report #2012-01. (report | updated web version)
- McCloy (2010). The semantics of implicitly relational predicates. In Proceedings of the 26th Northwest Linguistics Conference. Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser University. (proceedings)
Conference presentations (14)
- McCloy, Panfili, John, Winn & Wright (2018). Gender, the individual, and intelligibility. Presented at the 176th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Victoria, BC. (doi | poster)
- McCloy & Lee (2016). Modeling native phonology and non-native speech perception using EEG signals. Presented at the 172nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Honolulu, HI. (doi | poster)
- McCloy & Lee (2016). Estimating speech sound categorization from electrophysiological responses. Presented at the Northwest Auditory and Vestibular Research Meeting, Portland, OR. (poster)
- McCloy, Yurong & Puthuval (2016). Phonetically-conditioned vowel devoicing in Chahar Mongolian. Presented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Washington, DC. (poster)
- McCloy, Kishline & Lee (2014). Listener strategy and performance in linguistic and non-linguistic auditory divided attention tasks. Presented at the Gordon Research Conference on the Auditory System — Encoding Hearing: From Genes to Behavior, Lewiston, ME. (poster)
- McCloy & Lee (2014). Effects of cognitive load on selective and divided auditory spatial attention. Presented at the 167th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Providence, RI. (doi | poster)
- Kishline, McCloy, Larson & Lee (2014). Can you divide attention across two streams or are you rapidly switching between them? Presented at the 37th Annual MidWinter Meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, San Diego, CA. (poster)
- McCloy & Lee (2013). Effects of auditory spatial attention in a semantic classification task. Presented at the 166th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, San Francisco, CA. (doi | poster)
- McCloy (2013). Separating segmental and prosodic contributions to intelligibility. Presented at the 4th International Summer School on Speech Production and Perception: Speaker-Specific Behavior, Aix-en-Provence, FR. (poster)
- McCloy, Moran & Wright (2013). Revisiting ‘The role of features in phonological inventories.’ Presented at the CUNY Conference on the Feature in Phonology and Phonetics, New York, NY. (slides)
- McCloy, Wright & McGrath (2012). Modelling talker intelligibility variation in a dialect-controlled corpus. Presented at the 164th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Kansas City, MO. (doi | poster)
- Moran, McCloy & Wright (2012). Revisiting the population vs phoneme-inventory correlation. Presented at the 86th Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, OR. (doi | slides)
- McCloy (2011). Vowel laxing in Indonesian as a test case for interaction of morphological and syllabic structure. Presented at the 161st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA. (doi | poster)
- McCloy (2010). The semantics of implicitly relational predicates. Presented at the 26th Northwest Linguistics Conference, Burnaby, BC.
Academic service: panels, conferences & committees
- Review Panelist: NSF POSE (2022).
- Member: LSA Committee on Scholarly Communication in Linguistics (2014–2018).
- Session organizer: “Quantitative Methodology in Physiological and Psychophysical Data Analysis,” 171st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Salt Lake City (2016).
- Member: LSA Technology Advisory Committee (2013–2014).
- Conference chair: 24th Northwest Linguistics Conference, Seattle (2008).
- Referee: LSA Annual meeting (2014, 2016), Northwest Linguistics Conference (2008, 2012).
Academic service: journal reviews
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (5), JASA Express Letters (3), Phonology (3), Nature (1), Journal of Phonetics (1), Psychophysiology (1), Linguistics Vanguard (1), Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research (1), Language Development Research (1), UW Working Papers in Linguistics (2).
Academic service: mentorship & outreach
- Organizer: MNE-Python New Developers Sprint (2021, 2022) and Intermediate Training (2023).
- Mentor: 2 graduate students, 1 undergraduate, and 3 high school students (2011-2019).
- Volunteer: Pacific Science Center’s Paws On Science Weekend (2016).
Grants, fellowships, and awards
Professional and scholarly affiliations
International Phonetic Association (2014–2020), Acoustical Society of America (2011–2020), Linguistic Society of America (2009–2020), Association for Research in Otolaryngology (2014–2018), Phi Beta Kappa (2002–present).
Languages
English (native), Modern Standard Chinese (intermediate), Spanish (reading knowledge).
