Professor Patricia E Cowell, BA, MS, PhD.

Department of Human Communication Sciences
The University of Sheffield
31 Claremont Crescent
Sheffield
S10 2TA
UK



Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 2426
Fax: +44 (0) 114 273 0547

email : p.e.cowell@sheffield.ac.uk

Biography

Patricia Cowell is a Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield. Before coming to Sheffield she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (1992-1995) in the Brain Behavior Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania Medical School with a research focus on cortical sex differences in adults in relation to aging and schizophrenia. Patricia completed her PhD (1992) and masters (1990) in Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of Connecticut through research on the corpus callosum and behavioural laterality in humans and rodents. Her undergraduate education at Boston University (1983-7) was in Psychology and Statistics.

Research interests

• Ovarian hormones, speech production and speech perception
• Cerebral asymmetries and interhemispheric relationships
• Sex differences in cortical development and aging
• Modelling mechanisms of cognitive neuroplasticity
• Neurodevelopmental disorders (dyslexia, autism, schizophrenia)
  

Current projects

• Ovarian Hormones and Speech. Co-investigators: Sandra Whiteside, Human Communication Sciences, and William Ledger, Developmental and Reproductive Medicine, University of Sheffield; Mara Mather, USC Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, USA. ESRC funded “Hormonal fluctuations across the menstrual cycle and their impact on speech: A data mining, modelling and resource generation project”.
• Mathematical modelling of speech across the menstrual cycle. Sandra Whiteside, Human Communication Sciences, and Julia Rees, Applied Mathematics, University of Sheffield. EPSRC Bridging the Gaps, Flagship Research Project in Data and Performance Analysis, “Mathematical and engineering applications in the exploration of human speech”.
• Measurement of the living brain throughout the life span. Co-investigators: Vanessa Sluming, Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy, University of Liverpool.
• Acoustic and neurocognitive bases of asymmetry in speech perception. Sandra Whiteside, Human Communication Sciences, University of Sheffield; Kenneth Hugdahl, Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway.

Professional affiliations

• Society for Neuroscience
• Organization for the Study of Sex Differences
• ESRC Peer Review College

External collaborators

• Prof William Ledger, Developmental and Reproductive Medicine, University of Sheffield, UK.
• Dr Julia Rees, Applied Mathematics, University of Sheffield, UK.
• Dr Vanessa Sluming, Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy, University of Liverpool, UK.
• Prof Kenneth Hugdahl, Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway.
• Dr Mara Mather, USC Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, USA.

Key publications

1. Cowell, P.E. 2010. Auditory laterality - Recent findings in speech asymmetry. In: The two halves of the brain: Information processing in the cerebral hemispheres. K Hugdahl and R Westerhausen (Eds). M.I.T. Press. pages 349-377.
2. Chen, Z.-Y., Cowell, P.E., Varley, R.A., and Y-C. Wang. 2009. A cross-language study of verbal and visuospatial working memory span. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 31:385-391.
3. Rees, J.M., Regunath, G., Whiteside, S.P., Wadnerkar, M.B., and Cowell, P.E. 2008. Adaptation of wavelet transform analysis to the investigation of biological variations in speech signals. Medical Engineering and Physics, 30:865-871.
4. Wadnerkar, M.B., Whiteside, S.P. and Cowell, P.E. 2008. Dichotic listening asymmetry: effects of sex differences and menstrual cyclicity, Laterality, 13:297-309.
5. Cowell, P.E., Sluming, V.A., Wilkinson, I.D., Cezayirli, E., Romanowski, C.A.J., Webb, J.A., Keller, S.S., Mayes, A., and Roberts, N. 2007. Effects of sex and age on regional prefrontal brain volume in two human cohorts, European Journal of Neuroscience, 25(1):307-318.
6. Wadnerkar, M.B., Cowell, P.E., and Whiteside, S.P. 2006. Speech across the menstrual cycle: a replication and extension study, Neuroscience Letters, 408:21-24.

Last updated: 25 January 2012