Saturday 24 January 2026 – Online 10.30 -17.00 GMT

The new year launches the first British Voice Association Research Forum. This online event includes both the prestigious Gunnar Rugheimer Lecture (given by Professor Kittie Verdolini Abbott) and presentations from the four Van Lawrence Prize finalists. Multidisciplinary voice is the theme of the day with the Open Forum focused on finding common concepts and vocabulary across disciplines, and a keynote lecture given by Dr Ian Howell on the intersection of voice science, perception, production, hearing, and teaching. The event culminates with the announcement of the Van Lawrence prize winner.

 

SPEAKERS

The Gunnar Rugheimer Lecture will be delivered by Professor Kittie Verdolini Abbott, professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware. Her pitch: “Art and science are often viewed as distinct enterprises, in the best case complementary but different. It is surprising to discover that there is actually little agreement in the philosophy of science on exactly what “science” is and therefore, how it might be distinct from “art” at all. In this presentation, we will discuss various approaches to understanding “science” in any pure sense and why each fails. I will present an alternative view of art and science as indwelling in the most intimate — and most satisfying ways.”

Dr Ian Howell is the founder and chief educator at the Embodied Music Lab, and teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yale College, Swarthmore, and Rutgers. He also has an impressive career as a solo singer and has performed at major venues across America, Europe, Canada and Japan. He is author of Hearing Singing: A Guide to Functional Listening and Voice Perception. Dr Howell’s talk ‘Functional Listening’ will introduce this key concept, tying simple perceptual qualities to physiological elements of voice production within the frames of functional listening.

FINALISTS FOR THE BVA VAN LAWRENCE AWARD

From a quality field of applicants, the four finalists vying for the Van Lawrence Prize have been selected. They are: Jenna Brown (Female Voices After Laryngectomy: Vulnerability, stigma and psychosocial impact); Nicola Gorb (Innovative Experiential Practice to Support Children and Young People (CYP) with Voice and Complex Airway Conditions); Claire Thomas (Muscle Tension Dysphonia (MTD) in Singers: Developing tools to bridge therapy and performance); Chia-Hsin Wu (Exploring Voice Quality Modulation Through the “Three Bears Passage”: Acoustic and perceptual insights).

You can hear these finalists present their leading-edge research findings at the online BVA Research Forum 2026, Saturday, 24 January. Listen in to judge for yourself!

The Forum culminates in the announcement of the BVA Van Lawrence prize winner.