Hall of Fame

Katherine Safford Harris

Voice and Speech Science

Famous for pioneering research and leadership in the study of speech production.

Katherine Safford Harris (September 3, 1925 – March 13, 2024) was a pioneer in the use of electromyography (EMG) to study the dynamics of motor control, specifically the muscles used in speech production. Both of Kathy’s degrees — her B.A. from Radcliffe College and her Ph.D. from Harvard University — were in psychology. She joined the research staff of Haskins Laboratories in 1952; Haskins was her lifelong research home. In 1970, Kathy joined the faculty of the City University of New York Graduate School (CUNY), was named Distinguished Professor in 1984, and Professor Emerita in 1997. While her first research focused on questions of speech perception, it is her later, pioneering research in EMG studies of speech production that constitute her most significant contributions to speech science. The diagram below from her 1978 publication shows averaged EMG activity in microvolts for the genioglossus muscle for two speakers (top and bottom). Stress contrasts are shown at the left (two different EMG activations) while speaking-rate contrasts are shown at the right.

Today EMG research falls under the area of neuroscience research. With her first EMG publication in 1964 (Harris, Rosov, Cooper and Lysaught), she became one of the founders of a research tradition that studies human behavior through neuroscience methods.

The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) was Kathy’s lifelong scholarly society home: she joined in 1954, the year she received her Ph.D. She was elected a Fellow of the ASA in 1967, served as Vice President and President, and was awarded the Silver Medal in Speech Communication — the ASA’s highest technical area award — as well as the ASA Gold Medal for contributions to acoustics and to the society. Kathy was elected a Fellow of four distinguished societies: the ASA, the AAAS, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the New York Academy of Sciences.

Kathy’s leadership in the area of speech production was acknowledged from the beginning of her career. For 20 years she was the principal investigator on an NIH Clinical Research Center Grant, directing a large number of investigators and diverse research projects. At NIH she participated on grant review panels and served as a consultant on taskforces and advisory committees for the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Kathy was especially interested in how neuromotor organization was related to acoustic and linguistic (especially phonetic) variations, as well as how listeners identified phonetic units. Several of Kathy’s publications are offered below; they reflect her interest in deepening our understanding of the relations between the production and the perception of speech. Figure 1 from one of these papers, Harris (1978), presents the kind of ensemble-averaged rectified EMG signals often used in her research.

Over the years, most of the graduate students Kathy mentored were from CUNY, but she also mentored students from other universities, including the University of Connecticut, Yale University, and the University of Wisconsin. Many of these students (and to Kathy, each of us — including herself — was always a student) went on to become leaders in speech communication and, through Kathy’s example, were able to inspire another generation of scientists and leaders. Scientists came from around the world to work with Kathy — too many to name here — but for each of us she was a mentor, a colleague, and a friend, and our lives were richer for having Kathy in them.

Kathy was also remarkable for the way she made things happen. Elaine Moran, the ASA Director of Operations, explained it this way: “When you are with Kathy, she makes you feel that everything is going to work out, and then she finds the solution and it works out!” And the things that worked out ranged from succeeding in receiving a grant, completing a Ph.D. thesis, and publishing a first paper, to arriving very late at night and convincing hotel staff to provide sandwiches after the kitchen had closed.

Bio by Fredericka Bell-Berti, Ph.D.

Figures and Media

EMG Activity in the Genioglossus Muscle (Harris, 1978)

SELECTED ARTICLES

Harris, K. S. (1958). Cues for the discrimination of American English fricatives in spoken syllables. Language and Speech, 1, 1–7.

Liberman, A. M., Cooper, F. S., Harris, K. S., & MacNeilage, P. F. (1962). A motor theory of speech perception. Proceedings of the Speech Communication Seminar. Stockholm, September 1962.

Harris, K. S., Rosov, R., Cooper, F. S., & Lysaught, G. F. (1964). A multiple suction electrode system. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 17, 698–700.

Harris, K. S., Lysaught, G. F., & Schvey, M. M. (1965). Some aspects of the production of oral and nasal labial stops. Language and Speech, 8, 135–147.

Harris, K. S. (1973). The physiological substrate of speaking. In W. D. Wolfe (Ed.), Articulation and Hearing: New Dimensions in Research, Diagnostics and Therapy. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

Harris, K. S. (1978). Vowel duration change and its underlying physiological mechanisms. Language and Speech, 21, 354–361.

Bell-Berti, F., & Harris, K. S. (1981). A temporal model of speech production. Phonetica, 38, 98–105.

Harris, K. S. (1992). Measuring vocal fold movement. In A. Blitzer, C. Sasaki, S. Fahn, M. Brin, & K. S. Harris (Eds.), Neurological Disorders of the Larynx. New York: Thieme Press.