Vicky Meixian Li

I’m Vicky Meixian [meɪ ɕjɛn] Li, a PhD student in Linguistics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. My research lies at the intersection of phonetics and sociolinguistics, with a particular focus on voice quality and how it interacts with speaker identity factors such as gender, age, and language background. I am especially interested in how bilingual speakers produce and perceive phonetic variations, and how their languages interact and influence one another during this process. At PolyU, I work with Prof. Yao Yao and Prof. Charles B. Chang on a project examining the social meanings of creaky voice in Mandarin Chinese.

My academic background bridges speech-language pathology and linguistics. I completed my M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, where I studied feedback processing in children with developmental language disorder. I received my B.A. in Speech, Language & Hearing Science from The George Washington University, during which I gained early research experience in the language acquisition of bilingual children. Before starting my PhD, I worked as a speech-language pathologist in the Massachusetts Public School System for one year.