Biography

Hi! I’m Casey, a sociophonetician and researcher at Appen. I work on a wide variety of projects and programs dedicated to improving AI for Good, and making language and speech technology accessible and safe for all. My current research focuses on AI safety, specifically in the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Multimodal LLMs in the context of agentic and generative AI.

I’m also a researcher of Australian English sociophonetics. My research interests include children’s acquisition and use of sociophonetic cues, particularly in Australian English, and stress-meter relationships in music and language. My PhD research was completed at La Trobe University in 2019, and investigated gender-specific sociophonetic cues in primary school-aged speakers of Australian English.

The majority of my research work has been in sociophonetics, but I have been involved in a number of research projects at The University of Melbourne and La Trobe University over the years.

At La Trobe, I’m collaborating with Dr Cara Penry Williams (University of Derby) on an investigation of /t/ variation in the speech of children and young adults in Australian English. I have also worked on sociolinguistic variation in Melbourne English with Cara Penry Williams and Professor James Walker. I also work with Associate Professor Lauren Gawne on a variety of projects.

I collaborate with Associate Professor Chloé Diskin-Holdaway and Dr Debbie Loakes at the University of Melbourne on a sociophonetic projects. I have also worked with Professor John Hajek reasearching phonetics and phonology in a variety of languages, including Saliba Logea (a native language in Papua New Guinea), Italian, and Sicilian.