Dr Kai Alter

Biography

I studied French, Italian, Russian, and Nahuatl and Linguistics at the University of Leipzig.

My PhD Thesis was about French Exclamatory and Interrogative Intonation at the Syntax-Prosody Interface.

I extended my research on Sentence and word level connecting different topics, such as brain activity and Speech recognition. My Habilitation (a German approach to have sort of a second compulsory PhD – the Venia legendi – legally allowing to teach and supervise students at University level) was about the interface between Neuroscience and Speech and Language processing.

Between my PhD and Habilitation, I worked at two renowned Research Institutes – the Austrian Research Institute of Artificial Intelligence (OefAI) in Vienna and the Max-Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig.

At OefAI, I was involved in a pre-cursor of ChatGPT (VIECTOS – the Vienna Concept to Speech System) modelling the interface between automatically generated text and computerised speech output on lexical and prosodic level.

At MPI CBS, I worked on Neurocognition of Prosody as an Independent Junior Research Group Leader working on sentence and lexical prosody, and emotional processing using brain imaging techniques such as EEG, MEG, and fMRI.

At Newcastle University, I extended my research into neurological conditions such as Dyslexia and Tinnitus. I mainly investigate Auditory processing, Neuroscience, and Prosody by means of EEG. My neurobiological study spans a wide range of topics, including Resting state EEG, Perception and the Motor system.

Research

My fields of study are

Auditory Neuroscience
Cognition and Language processing
Processing of emotions

My primary areas of study are Prosody on Sentence and Phrase level, including lexical access. With my colleagues at the University of Cambridge, we are undertaking studies on a variety of prosodic patterns during speech processing using non-invasive techniques of recording of brain activity. We are currently working on a project to improve the prosody of cloned voices funded by an Incubator grant.

My work in the field of Neuroscience, such as speech perception as measured by Electroencephalography intersects with other areas on activities on Auditory Cortex and dynamics related to brain activity.

Funder	From	To	Topic	My role	Co-PI	£££
Wellcome Trust	Oct-21	Sep-25	Tinnitus	Collaborator	Dr Will Sedley	£1.1Mill
RNID	Nov-21	Oct-24	Tinnitus	Co-PI	Dr Will Sedley	£85k
AHRC	Oct-20	Sep-24	Communication	Co-PI	Dr Laurence White	£85k
RNID	Oct-19	Sep-23	Tinnitus	Co-PI	Dr Will Sedley	£75k
NU	Sep-18	Sep-24	Phonetics	Co-PI	Prof Ghada Khattab	£10k
ESRC NINE DTP	Sep-19	Oct-23	Dyslexia	Co-PI	Dr Cristina Dye	£80k
FCT (Portugal)	Sep-18	Sep-22	Infant EEG	Co-PI	Prof Sonia Frota	£200k
American Tinnitus Association	Jan 25	Dec 2027	TCDS and EEG	Co-PI	Dr Will Sedley	$123k