Cynthia Clopper, professor and chair of the department of linguistics, researches speech sounds: how we produce them, their acoustic characteristics, and their perception by listeners. She says that every time we say a word, like "cat," it's subtly different. For more of her discussion with David Staley, listen to this week's Voices of Excellence

Professor of sociology Elizabeth Cooksey studies social demography, life course transitions, and the development of youth and children. She also serves as the director of the Center for Human Resource Research, which started the first national longitudinal survey 55 years ago. The data from the study has been used in thousands of articles, and Cooksey describes how it works to David Staley on this week's Voices of Excellence

Professor Laura Kubatko, from the Department of Statistics and the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, is amazed by the advances she's seen in her career in how scientists translate "observations into formal mathematical or statistical models." Moreover, this is for her the "fun part," because they collaborate to explain "why [we] think [an event] is happening." She describes these developments and more with David Staley on this week's Voices of Excellence

Professor of Psychology Laura Wagner studies how children acquire language and learn about meaning, such as the progression of time in storytelling. Their interpretations of even simple stories like the famous chicken joke reveal hidden meanings about complicated linguistics and complex concepts of time. She discusses this and more with David Staley on this week's Voices of Excellence

The School of Music's Barry Green has served as the principal bassist for both the Cincinnati Symphony and the California Symphony and Sun Valley Idaho Summer Symphony. His book The Inner Game of Music, has sold over a quarter of a million copies . He shares his thoughts on music, musicianship, and how to drown out the negative thoughts in your head so you can play better music with David Staley on this week's Voices of Excellence on Soundcloud

Meow Hui Goh, an associate professor of Chinese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, researches medieval Chinese literature, medieval Chinese literary and cultural history, memory and text in medieval China, and the instrumentality of medieval Chinese literature. She is completing a new book manuscript, The Double Life of Chaos: Living Memory and Literature in Early Medieval China, C.E. 180s to 300s, which covers the collapse of the Han Dynasty. For more of her discussion with David Staley, listen to this week's Voices of Excellence

Gina Osterloh, assistant professor of art, sees her photographic practice as embodying the printed image, drawing, film, and performance as it explores the resonances between the physical body and its representational imprint, trace or stand in. For more of her discussion with David Staley, including her insight in role of looking and vision in creating one's identity, as well as being a site of tremendous pressure and pleasure, listen to this week's Voices of Excellence.

Professor of geography, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Enrichment, and Executive Director of the Honors and Scholars Center, Ola Ahlqvist studies cartography, land cover change, geographic information, and online maps. He also looks at the impact that the definition of terms has on research, such as what defines a forest. Listen to his discussion of this and more with David Staley on this week's Voices of Excellence

Distinguished university professor and Arts and Humanities distinguished professor in the Department of English, Jim Phelan also serves as director of medical humanities and director of project narrative. He joins David Staley to define narrative theory, identify the many audiences built into narratives, and discuss how "narrative competence enhances medical competence." For more of his research, listen to this week's Voices of Excellence.

Annika Peter, associate professor of physics and astronomy, works at the interface of particle physics and astronomy to discover the secrets of dark matter. She shares her research on galaxies, particles, and constellations with David Staley on this week's Voices of Excellence