Nathaniel Whitmal, III

Nathaniel Whitmal, III

Associate Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences

Speech intelligibility; signal processing; hearing aids; cochlear implants; electroacoustics

Location

Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Building

358 North Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01003
United States

Room #309

My research is concerned with modeling and predicting speech intelligibility for hearing-impaired subjects listening in adverse conditions. Insights from this work will inform the design and usage of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive listening devices.

Education

  • MS, Communication Disorders, UMass Amherst, 2004; CCC-A, American Speech-Language Hearing Association, 2006
  • PhD, Electrical Engineering, Northwestern University, 1997
  • MS, Electrical Engineering, Northwestern University, 1993
  • BS, Electrical Engineering, MIT, 1986

Key Publications

N. A. Whitmal and K. DeRoy. Use of an adaptive-bandwidth protocol to measure importance functions for simulated cochlear-implant frequency channels. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 132, pp. 1359-1370, 2012.

N. A. Whitmal and K. DeRoy. Adaptive-bandwidth measurements of importance functions for speech intelligibility prediction. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 131, pp. 4032-4043, 2011.

N. A. Whitmal and S. F. Poissant. Effects of source-to-listener distance and masking on perception of cochlear implant processed speech in reverberant rooms. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 126, pp. 2556-2569, 2009.

N. A. Whitmal, S. F. Poissant, R. L. Freyman, and K. S. Helfer. Speech intelligibility in cochlear implant simulations: effects of carrier type, interfering noise, and subject experience. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 122, pp. 2376-2388, 2007.

S. F. Poissant, N. A. Whitmal, and R. L. Freyman. Effects of reverberation and masking on speech intelligibility in cochlear implant simulations. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 119, pp. 1606-1615, 2006.