The Team

Nell Maltman earned her PhD from Northwestern University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the director of the Lifespan Language Lab. The focus of her work is how language, cognition, and genetics interact across the lifespan in individuals and families affected by autism spectrum disorder and Fragile X-associated conditions.     

Mariah is a second year graduate student in the University of Arizona's Master of Science program in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. She joined the Lifespan Language Lab in the Fall of 2023 and continued working in the lab as an undergraduate research assistant during the Spring and Summer of 2024. She is now a Graduate Research Assistant. Mariah has been working on the Language, Executive Function, and Quality of Life project and greatly enjoys administering language study tests and transcribing speech samples.

Mariah believes that language and communication are extremely important aspects of the human experience that empower us to express ourselves and build connections with one another. She is excited to be starting her clinical experience and learning the skills required to become the best SLP she can be.

Fun Fact: Mariah has worked in professional theatre making costumes for many years and worked at Arizona Theatre Company seasonally for 17 seasons!

Sumi Lee is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Linguistics minoring in Cognitive Science, also enrolled in the Human Language Technology M.S. program. She aims to contribute to research projects related to autism spectrum disorder and Fragile X Syndrome by leveraging her knowledge in linguistics. Sumi's research interests span from gesture production to speech analysis to natural language processing. She recently started to enjoy coding, mainly because she loves the colorful fonts in her programming environment. Outside of academia, Sumi loves music, good food, and long road trips.