Annie Marchese is a second-year graduate student at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, where she is pursuing a master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. She earned her B.S.Ed. in Speech Communication Disorders from the University of Virginia.
Annie currently works in the Speech Physiology’s Neurobiology of Aging and Dementia (SPaN-AD) Lab under the direction of Dr. Marziye Eshghi. Her responsibilities include preparing and organizing large-scale data sets, conducting data collection and acoustic analyses, and contributing to collaborative research projects. Within the lab, she is engaged in research on speech biomarkers for early disease detection, with a particular focus on vowel acoustics. This work examines subtle changes in acoustic, articulatory, and language features that may signal risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders before clinical symptoms appear.
Her thesis, also conducted through the SPaN-AD Lab, explores vowel acoustic markers as potential indicators of cognitive decline. By studying how vowel production differs in individuals at varying risk levels for Alzheimer’s disease, Annie hopes to contribute to a growing body of research on improving early detection and intervention strategies for neurodegenerative conditions.
BS, Ed., Speech Communication Disorders at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia