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Matthew Masapollo, Ph.D.

Matthew Masapollo, PhD

  • Assistant Professor
  • Principal Investigator of the Speech Motor Control Lab
  • Associate Member, OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center

(405) 271-4214, ext. 46056

Matthew-Masapollo@ouhsc.edu

Dr. Masapollo is the principal investigator of the OU Health Sciences Speech Motor Control Laboratory (est. 2024). He received his Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from McGill University (under Dr. Linda Polka), and then completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one in Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Science at Brown University (under Dr. James L. Morgan), the other in Speech, Language, and Hearing Science at Boston University (under Dr. Frank H. Guenther). Prior to joining the faculty at OU Health Sciences, he also completed a year of advanced sensorimotor neuroscience training at McGill University (under Dr. David J. Ostry), which deepened his interest in the roles of afferent auditory and somatosensory inputs in speech motor learning and control.

The core scientific mission of the Speech Motor Control Laboratory is to: (1) Understand how the human brain coordinates and controls speech movements; (2) Understand the roles of afferent sensory inputs in regulating the control of speech movements; and (3) Understand sensorimotor learning for speech early in human development. Experimentally, the lab focuses on kinematic (spatial and motion aspects) analyses of speech articulator (lip, tongue, jaw, glottis) movements and functional brain imaging (fMRI, fNIRS) of speech production. Results of these investigations hold broad implications for speech sensorimotor learning and control in clinical patient populations with congenital and acquired sensorimotor deficits (e.g., head and neck cancer patients; children born with cleft lip or palate; profoundly deaf children who receive cochlear implants [bionic ears]).

Education:

  • Postdoc, Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, 2017-19
  • Postdoc, Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2016-17
  • Ph.D., Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 2016
  • B.A., Cognitive and Linguistic Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2010

Societies and Organizations:

  • Acoustical Society of America
  • Association for Research in Otolaryngology
  • Society for the Neural Control of Movement

Teaching:

  • CSD 3413: Anatomy and Physiology of Speech
  • CSD 3443: Foundations of Speech and Language Development
  • CSD 5133: Research Foundations in Communication Disorders

Research Interests:

  • Sensorimotor Neuroscience
  • Plasticity in Human Motor and Sensory Systems
  • CNS Networks for Speech Production
  • Speech Motor Coordination and Control
  • Articulatory Physiology
  • Afferent Auditory and Oral Somatosensory Inputs

Funding:

  • Presbyterian Health Foundation, Sensorimotor control of speech movements by cochlear implant recipients, Seed Grant Program, Principal investigator, 2025-26.
  • Hearing Health Foundation, Contributions of auditory and somatosensory feedback to speech motor control in congenitally deaf 9-to-10-year-olds and adults, Emerging Research Grant. Principal investigator, 2021-23.
  • American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation, Mechanisms of speech motor sequence learning, New Investigators Research Grant. Principal investigator, 2021-23.

Select Publications:

  • Masapollo, M., Gendron, R., Wyndham, E., Marcellus, A., Shamsi, A., & Maxfield, N. (2025). Inter-articulator timing relations underlie the production of precise and consistent vocal tract constrictions during speech. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_JSLHR-24-00535. PMID: 40268725
  • Masapollo, M., Rodriguez, A., Gendron, R., Kent, K., Thomas, H., & Nittrouer, S. (2025). Generalization of inter-articulator timing control: evidence from tongue-jaw and lip-jaw kinematics using electromagnetic articulography. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. DOI: 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-24-00323. PMID: 39680804
  • Masapollo, M., & Nittrouer, S. (2024). Immediate auditory feedback regulates inter-articulator speech coordination in service to phonetic structure. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 156(3), DOI: 10.1121/10.0028725. PMID: 39287467
  • Masapollo, M., & Nittrouer, S. (2023). Inter-articulator speech coordination: timing is of the essence. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(3), 901-915. DOI: 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00594. PMID: 36827516.

Complete List of Published Work in PubMed Bibliography