From Industry to Academia: How a Graduate Student Fellow Uses Engineering to Study Speech

BY: NATALIE GOLD

Hasini Weerathunge has a strong background in industry—from working in the London Stock Exchange to conducting research at SYNERGEN Technology Labs. Now, as a Graduate Student Fellow at Boston University’s Hariri Institute for Computing, she is studying how Parkinson’s disease affects speech production processes in the brain.

Originally from Sri Lanka, Weerathunge grew up with two engineers as parents. Their work sparked Weerathunge’s early interest in mathematics and science, and she found herself inventing things throughout her childhood. Her interests led her to study electronics engineering during her undergraduate studies in Sri Lanka. It was there that she became interested in signal processing, or the analysis and modification of signals such as sounds or images. She became specifically interested in bio signal processing, and helped build a device prototype that analyzes the responses of a newborn baby’s brainstem to different sounds. The device could help doctors determine if a baby is deaf or hard of hearing, and help with early intervention and treatment.

After finishing her undergraduate studies, Weerathunge was unsure of where she would fit best in her career. “One thing I was really worried about at the time I ended my undergraduate studies was, do I fit in the industry, or do I fit in research,” she said. So, she took time to work in industry as a business analyst for the London Stock Exchange and a research engineer at a Texas-based biomedical instrumentation startup.

The years in industry helped Weerathunge realize that her true calling is in full time research. “The detour I took over these two years really taught me that I was born to be a researcher,” said Weerathunge.

Now a graduate student at Boston University, Weerathunge conducts neuroengineering research, which involves using an engineering perspective to investigate neuroscience research questions. Weerathunge works in the STEPP LAB for Sensorimotor Rehabilitation Engineering, where she studies speech motor control issues associated with Parkinson’s disease.

In the lab, Weerathunge conducts behavioral studies and develops neurocomputational models to better understand how Parkinson’s disease affects the brain. In her behavioral studies, Weerathunge examines how participants change their speech in response to disruptions, both in what they hear and in how they move their vocal tract to produce speech. This behavioral data is then used to develop models of how the brain controls speech in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Weerathunge is especially interested in creating models that pinpoint how different areas of the brain react to disruptions in somatosensory feedback.

Weerathunge’s work could pave the way for new treatments of speech deficits in patients that have motor control disorders like Parkinson’s disease, and she understands and appreciates this importance. “The purpose of my research is to improve the quality of life of those who suffer with neurodegenerative diseases,” said Weerathunge.

Weerathunge’s path to research has not been linear, but her detours focused her interests and brought her to the work she is passionate about. She believes far more engineering expertise is needed to move the field of speech science forward, and is doing what she can to help. “I want to understand speech motor control in the brain so that someday, my work can be used to build a brain-computer interface for speech,” she said.

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