Welcome to SHBT

The strange but familiar fact that an idea, an emotion, a warning, a song, can travel from one person’s brain to another depends on the dauntingly complex, deeply fascinating chain reaction known as human communication. At the Harvard-MIT Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT), we study every link in that chain, at every level of understanding, from biochemistry to cognition.

Our faculty includes physicists, biologists, psychologists, linguists, clinicians, neurophysiologists, and at least five kinds of engineers. Our doctoral students cover the same dynamic range. Together, we take a strikingly cross-disciplinary approach, pursuing innovative answers to some very big questions: How do speech and hearing work? How do the mechanisms go wrong? And what can we do to restore them?

SHBT News and Events

SHBT Summer Talks

The 2009 edition of the highly awaited End of Summer Talks! Come watch as first and second year students present their summer research. The duration of each talk should be 12 minutes, and there will be 3 additional minutes for questions.

Day 1 - abstract booklet (pdf)

When: Tuesday, September 15
Where: E25-111
4:15pm - Welcome and introduction of the new SHBT class
4:45pm - Talks with coffee break
7:00pm - Dinner

Day 2 - abstract booklet (pdf)

When: Tuesday, September 15
Where: 56-154 **PLEASE NOTE THE ROOM CHANGE**
4:15pm - Talks
5:30pm - Cookies and coffee

SHBT Faculty receives Early Career Award in Science and Engineering

Patrick Wolfe (profile) is one of four Harvard researchers to be named among the nationwide winners of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Read more.

SHBT Thesis Defense

Who: E. Courtenay Wilson
Title: Interactions Between the Auditory and Vibrotactile Senses: A Study of Perceptual Effects
When: Wednesday, September 9, 2009 pm
Where: Haus Room (MIT 36-428)

Recent Events

SHBT Faculty featured in HST Connector

Jennifer Melcher featured in the Spring 2009 HST Connector [pdf].