UCLA Phonetics Lab: 50+ years!

Friday June 20, from 2pm into the evening


The Phonetics Lab celebrated 50 years since the first, June 1964, issue of Working Papers in Phonetics, where Peter described the fully functioning research and teaching lab that he had put together [see bottom of this page for details]. We welcomed present and former members from near and far. Here is the plan of the event -


2-5 pm: The Phonetics Lab (mainly in 2101 Campbell Hall*) was an "open house" during the afternoon (and the rest of the department was open for regular business, so visitors could see it all). Folks could see the current lab facilities, a full set of print issues of Working Papers in Phonetics, and the historic lab picture boards. They played IPA bingo and read spectrograms!

5-7:30 pm:We moved to the Faculty Center for food, drink, and more activities. (The food was substantial enough that most people made dinner out of it.) Some current students and alums had posters on display. (Free concierge poster service was provided to participants!) Among the posters was a "match game" of matching former students' names with their dissertation titles. A slide show of photos contributed by alums, compiled by Barbara Blankenship and John Ohala, ran continuously. (Please contact Barbara Blankenship** if you have more photos to contribute.) Skype was available so that alums who can't be with us can at least say hello (though no one did this). A brief formal program of very sparing remarks was at about 6 pm.

We were open to also showing video hellos - but because there was just one, we didn't show it. If you would like to send a video after the fact, feel free to do so - contact Pat**.

8 pm on: Desserts (including cake) and pingpong at Pat** and Bruce's house, near Century City.


*Directions to the Linguistics Department: http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/visiting/9-locate-us.html (but note that the map there is for the third floor, where the department office is; the phonetics lab is on the second floor, though in the same wing of the building).

UCLA parking information: UCLA charges $12 for a full day's parking, but also offers metered parking for shorter stays. There is a lot very near Campbell, and another one very near the Faculty Center, both of which have meters as well as full-day parking. There are also meters north of the Faculty Center, behind the Law School. For full-day parking, you first go to a parking kiosk. For meters, you pay at a parking station near where you've parked (these accept credit cards). See https://main.transportation.ucla.edu/campus-parking/visitors and http://maps.ucla.edu/campus/. There is also free street parking on Hilgard Avenue south of the Faculty Center. (And since June 20 is after graduation, but before Summer Sessions start, it's likely there will be spaces available, though maybe not in mid-afternoon....) UCLA is also well-served by public busses, and the SM busses stop right by the Faculty Center.

**Contact emails:
Pat Keating - keating@humnet.ucla.edu; Sun-Ah Jun - jun@humnet.ucla.edu; Barbarba Blankenship - bblankens@gmail.com; Sandy Disner - sdisner@gmail.com

(Sandy Disner provided this Restaurant List with suggestions for those who wanted a full dinner on Friday, and for other times during the weekend.)

Those who were able to attend (all or part of the event):
Adam Albright: 2002 Ph.D.
Norma Antoñanzas: former staff
Jason Bishop: 2013 Ph.D.
Barbara Blankenship: 1997 Ph.D.
Dustin Bowers: current grad student
Dani Byrd: 1994 Ph.D.
Adam Chong: current grad student
Martha Clayton: UCLA B.A. helping with the event
Abby Cohn: 1990 Ph.D.
Sandy Disner: 1983 Ph.D.
J. (James) Forrest Fordyce: 1988 Ph.D.
Cecile Fougeron: visiting student ~1993-96
Marc Garellek: 2103 Ph.D.
Bruce Gerratt: current UCLA faculty
Louis Goldstein: 1977 Ph.D.
Tetsuo Harada: 1999 Ph.D.(Applied Linguistics) and current visiting scholar
Bruce Hayes: current faculty
Chai-Shune Hsu: 1995 M.A.
Michel Jackson: 1988 Ph.D.
L. (Leon) Carl Jacobsen: 1979 Ph.D.
Sun-Ah Jun: current faculty
Yoo Kyung Kang: UCLA B.A. (and incoming grad student) helping with the event
Pat Keating: current faculty
Sameer ud Dowla Khan:  2008 Ph.D.
Chin-Woo Kim: 1966 Ph.D.
Yun Kim: current grad student
Paul (and Mary) Kirk: Ladefoged collaborator
Jody Kreiman (and Tom Glennon): visiting student ~1982-87 and current UCLA faculty
Jianjing Kuang: 2013 Ph.D.
Grace Kuo: 2013 Ph.D.
Jenny Ladefoged, with Lise, Amy, and Ethan Friedman: honored guests and former den mother!!
Eun Hwa Lee: current grad student
Hyuck Joon Lee: 1999 M.A.
Mona Lindau: 1975 Ph.D.
Wendy Linker: 1982 Ph.D.
Ian Maddieson: 1977 Ph.D.
Pam (and Allen) Munro: current faculty
Shri Narayanan: 1995 EE Ph.D.
John Ohala: 1969 Ph.D.
Manjari Ohala: 1972 Ph.D.
Aaron Shryock: 1995 Ph.D.
Diana Van Lancker Sidtis (and John Sidtis): visiting student ~1972-75; lab associate ~1980s
Caroline Smith: visiting faculty 1992-93, UCLA post-doc 1993-95
Tim Smith: 1970 Ph.D.
Megha Sundara: current faculty
Yu Tanaka: current grad student
Henry Tehrani: current staff
Chad Vicenik: 2011 Ph.D.
James White: 2013 Ph.D.
Andreas Wittenstein: 1983 M.A.
Kristine Yu: 2011 Ph.D.
Kie Zuraw: 2000 Ph.D. and current faculty


On the early days of the lab (or, What is this the 50th anniversary of?):

Peter arrived at UCLA by Fall 1962, when (thanks to Bob Stockwell) there was already a phonetics lab with "a Kay spectrograph, an Ampex recorder and a sound-proof room" (interview with Peter by Alan Kaye, JIPA 2006). By the end of that academic year he had a large NIH grant, "putting the UCLA Phonetics Lab well on its way". The grant work began in June 1963, and in June 1964 the first issue of Working Papers in Phonetics appeared: a report on the first year of the grant. In the intro to that volume, Peter says that the year was partly spent in “dealing with all the problems due to starting work in an almost non-existent laboratory”.  So we are following Peter's lead in viewing June 1964 - 50 years ago - as the point when the lab was, at last, functional, and could be presented to the world.