Dr. Mehta is Director of the Voice Science and Technology Laboratory at the MGH Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation, Assistant Professor in Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the MGH Institute, and faculty affiliate in the Harvard Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology. At the MGH Institute, he supervises graduate students interested in conducting research in voice and voice disorders.
His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health to investigate the details of the relationship between the motion of the vocal folds (the "voice box") and the acoustics of voice production. His expertise is in signal processing and acoustic voice analysis, bringing these engineering tools to clinical voice research. He has developed many voice-enabled technologies, including endoscopic imaging systems and wearable sensors, where the overall goal is to aid voice surgeons and speech-language pathologists in better understanding the mechanisms of normal and disordered voice production.
In 2015, Dr. Mehta received the prestigious Award for Early Career Contributions in Research from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
- BS, Electrical Engineering, University of Florida
- SM, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- PhD, Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Interests
- Clinical voice and speech assessment
- Wearable sensors for real-world voice monitoring
- Novel voice and speech processing
Murton OM, Semigran M, Daher M, Cunningham T, Verkouw K, Tabtabai S, Steiner J, Hillman RE, Dec GW, Ausiello D, Mehta DD. Acoustic speech analysis of patients with decompensated heart failure: A pilot study. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2017;142(4):EL401–EL407. PMCID: PMC5724620.
Espinoza VM, Zañartu M, Van Stan JH, Mehta DD, Hillman RE. Glottal aerodynamic measures in adult females with phonotraumatic and nonphonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction. J Speech Lang Hear Res 2017;60(8): 2159–2169. PMCID: PMC5829799.
Fryd AS, Van Stan JH, Hillman RE, Mehta DD. Estimating subglottal pressure from neck-surface acceleration during normal voice production. J Speech Lang Hear Res 2016;59(6):1335–1345. PMCID: PMC5399761.
Mehta DD, Van Stan JH, Zañartu M, Ghassemi M, Guttag JV, Espinoza VM, Cortés JP, Cheyne HA, Hillman RE. Using ambulatory voice monitoring to investigate common voice disorders: Research update. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology 2015;3(155):1–14. PMCID: PMC4607864.
Mehta DD, Zañartu M, Quatieri TF, Deliyski DD, Hillman RE. Investigating acoustic correlates of human vocal fold vibratory phase asymmetry through modeling and laryngeal high-speed video endoscopy. J Acoust Soc Am 2011;130(6):3999–4009. PMCID: PMC3253599.
See curriculum vitae for complete list of publications, presentations, and grants.