Graduate Alumni
Haley McCreight
Haley graduated with her M.S. in the UNH Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2025. She received her B.A. in Psychology from Wheaton College (MA) in 2022, and spent the next year working at a pediatric speech-language pathology private practice. Haley completed her master's thesis on parent-child language and prosody in a museum setting. She enjoys reading, cooking, hiking, and spending time with her two cats!
Piper MacLean
Piper graduated with her M.S. from the UNH Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2025. She graduated from UNH in 2022 with her bachelor's degree in CSD and worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the CAT Lab. Piper completed a master's thesis on developing a naturalistic task for constrastive focus as part of Dr. Thorson's larger project on prosodic assessment. She enjoys hiking, practicing hot yoga, and snowboarding with family and friends in her free time.
Rachel Courter
Rachel graduated with her M.S. from the UNH Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2024. During her time in the lab, she completed a Master's Thesis titled Melody of Speech Assessment in Children. She joined the CAT Lab to learn more about language development and completed an honor's thesis entitled Assessing how adults produce and understand the melody and rhythm of speech in English during undergrad. She enjoys watching the Celtics and spending time with friends and family.
Lindsey Bogh
Lindsey graduated with her M.S. from the accelerated Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2024. The topic of language acquisition became an area of interest for Lindsey throughout her course work at UNH and from her time spent working in a childcare center. She joined the CAT Lab to gain research experience and learn more about prosody and language acquisition. Lindsey enjoys hiking, surfing, and spending time with friends, family, and her cat.
Sabrina Salmela
Sabrina graduated with her M.S. from the UNH Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2023. Previously, she graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.A. in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences. Her favorite parts of the lab were running eye tracking studies, helping organize the various projects, and being part of an awesome team! Sabrina is now working at a private practice in Dover, NH.
Olivia Dempsey
Olivia graduated with her M.S. from the Accelerated UNH Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2023. She earned her B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2022. During her time in the lab, she completed her Master's Thesis in Prosidic Assessment of Language and Speech. Currently, she is working in San Diego at a private practice.
Lydia Sack
Lydia graduated with her M.S. from the UNH Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2022. She graduated from the University of Vermont with a Bachelor's degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Lydia joined the CAT Lab to learn more about child language acquisition. During her time in the lab, she worked on acoustic segementation using Praat, helped run research studies, and kept the lab organized and running smoothly.
Gabrielle Gagnon
Gabrielle received her M.S. from the UNH Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2022. She graduated from UNH with her bachelor’s degree in CSD in 2020. She joined the CAT Lab to become involved in research and to further her knowledge on language acquisition and prosody. Her time in the CAT Lab was spent doing acoustic coding using Praat, helping run research studies, and being the fastest grader around.
Kaleigh Samowski
Kaleigh graduated from UNH in 2021 with a M.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Her time in the CAT Lab was spent running participants, coding Project ACME data, training new lab members on Praat software, and organizing weekly lab meetings. Kaleigh received her B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Spanish from Lipscomb University in 2018.
Mikaela Coombs
In 2020, Mikaela graduated from UNH with a M.S. in Communication Sciences & Disorders. As a member of the CAT Lab, she assisted with running participants and coding data for Project ACME and the APPL Study. Before graduate school, Mikaela completed her B.A. in Psychology at Wheaton College.
Lauren Gabriel
Lauren graduated from UNH in 2020 with a M.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders. During her time in the CAT Lab, she dedicated countless hours to running participants and analyzing data for both Project ACME and the APPL Study. Prior to her time at UNH, Lauren recieved her undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester in 2014 where she majored in Psychology and Spanish. In 2016, Lauren received her M.A. in Child Development from Tufts University.
Rachel Platt
Rachel graduated from UNH in 2017 with a B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders. In 2019, she completed her M.S. at UNH in the Communication Sciences and Disorders department. During her graduate studies, Rachel completed a Master’s Thesis comparing the impact of word segmentation on speech prosody between children with apraxia of speech and typically developing children.
Undergraduate Alumni
Kaitlyn Williams
Kaitlyn graduated from UNH with her B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders. She was the Secretary for the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association. As a member of the CAT Lab, she analyzed data in Praat to assist on a master's thesis on analyzing prosodic assessment. Outside of school she enjoys paddle boarding, reading, cooking, and spending time with her friends and family.
Olivia Pride
Olivia graduated from the UNH majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders program with her B.S. She enjoys hiking in the whites with friends and family, looking for sea glass at the beach, and baking. Olivia became interested in language acquisition after taking the course with Dr. Thorson. She joined the CAT Lab to gain research experience and learn more about child language acquisition. Olivia completed an honor's thesis as part of her time in the CAT Lab.
Kate Stariknok
Kate graduated from UNH with a B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2023. She completed her Honor's Thesis, exploring the impact of foreign accent on receptive language assessments for bilingual children. After taking time to travel, she is now working as a speech-language assistant.
Madison Gould
Madison graduated from UNH with a B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2023. During her time in the lab, she completed an Honor's Thesis about parental conversational overlap in a museum setting and its impact on children's language skills. Currently, she is pursuing her Master's Degree at the University of Maryland.
Madison Hoglund
Madison graduated from UNH with a B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2023. She was an INCO student who assisted the lab on Project ACME, utilizing Praat and SALT for analyses.
Kelsey Belisle
Kelsey graduated from UNH with a B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders in 2022. She joined the CAT Lab to learn more about prosody and language acquisition. She also wanted to learn more about the research process. Kelsey helped run research studies as well as learning SALT transcription and analysis during her time working in the CAT Lab.
Samantha Hamilton
Samantha graduated in 2022 with her Bachelor's Degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. She joined the CAT Lab to gain research experience and build connections within the department. She enjoyed learning about the process of running studies and how they are conducted. Sammy worked on SALT transcriptions and analyses during her time in the lab.
Kaitlin Brown
Kaitlin was a junior at UNH when she joined the CAT Lab. She joined to learn more about prosody in children; specifically how children with Autism develop prosody differently. Kaitlin loves traveling, cooking, hiking, and spending time with family and friends.
Isabelle Danahy
Isabelle is a 2021 graduate with a B.S. in Communication Sciences & Disorders. She joined the CAT Lab to further explore her interest in language acquisition and to gain experience with research. Isabelle was an active CAT Lab member, participating in meetings and trainings while being a member of the UNH Field Hockey team.
Ashlyn Murphy
Ashlyn graduated from UNH with her B.S. in Communication Sciences & Disorders in 2021. In the spring of 2021, Ashlyn completed an Honors Thesis exploring the characteristics of Child-Directed Speech in a children's museum. Ashlyn is a member of UNH's chapter of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association.
Grace O'Halloran
Grace earned her B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders in the spring of 2021. While at UNH, she completed several INCOs. Grace presented her phonetic and prosodic analysis of Puerto Rican Spanish Speakers at the UNH Undergraduate Research Conference in the spring of 2021. She loved learning from and collaborating with other lab members and credits her time in the CAT Lab for making her more a confident member of research world.