Advancing Discoveries in the Sound of Health
What we do
The VOXX Lab is pioneering the science of health acoustics, using voice as a dynamic, non-invasive biomarker of neurological and physiological health across the lifespan. Our research focuses on how everyday speech reflects underlying biological changes, from aging and hormonal transitions to sleep disruption and neuromotor decline.
We integrate acoustic signal processing, AI-driven analysis, and real-world sensor data to uncover subtle vocal biomarkers that precede clinical symptoms. By capturing voice and contextual data through smartphones and wearables, we study health in the environments where people live and work, making our findings scalable, timely, and ecologically valid. Our interdisciplinary team draws from speech science, machine learning, and physiology to develop tools for early detection, risk stratification, and personalized intervention.
Why what we do is important
The human voice is one of the most sensitive instruments of neuromotor control, continuously shaped by the brain, body, and environment. Because voice production draws on respiratory, phonatory, articulatory, and cognitive systems, it offers a multisystem view of health. Even subtle changes in vocal quality can signal shifts in neurological function, hormonal state, or overall physiological well-being, often before clinical symptoms emerge.
Yet voice remains an underutilized biomarker in health diagnostics. Millions of people with voice changes go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, in part because traditional tools fail to account for biological variation such as aging, sleep disruption, or hormonal transitions that meaningfully impact vocal function. This results in generic or delayed interventions that miss key windows for prevention.
Our mission is to move beyond understanding voice as a symptom, to harnessing it as a digital diagnostic signal. From algorithm design to app-based screening tools, our work bridges the gap between discovery and deployment. The result is a new class of health technologies that are accessible, interpretable, and tuned to the lived realities of aging and everyday health.