Fredrik Karlsson

I am Senior lecturer and Associate professor in Speech-language pathology since 2015 and chair of the Speech-language pathology program (Logopedprogrammet) comittee. I also serve as the vice head of the Department of clinical sciences. My academic background is in linguistics and I am therefore associated also with the Faculty of Humanities as an Associate professor of phonetics (2013). As part of my teaching duties, I give the advanced level course in Research methodology in Speech-langauge pathology, and I am responsible for the degree projects course. I have been involved in the National network for Speech-.langauge pathology research (NFL), within which we worked to identify common strategic research issues within Logopedics. 

In my own research, I study speech and voice impairment due to neurological diseases. I have mainly focused on acoustic description of the effect of Parkinson's disease, and on the effect of DBS treatment (this video gives some general information regarding the procedure [in Swedish]) of this disease as well as on the disease essential tremor (see this video for more information on that disease, in relation to the DBS treatment). I use established acoustic correlates for speech motor ability to create a picture of what it is in the speech that is affected by the disease. Voice tremor is also an aspect of the patients' illness that I have been working on in recent years. A parallel track in the research is efforts towards creating objective acoustic screening tools based on repeated blinded and randomized perceptual expert assessments of speech function and voice tremors. This poster summarizes the overall method well.

I review manuscripts on a regular basis for Plos One, Expert Systems with Applications, Brain and Language, Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Journal of Voice and Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology. I have also reviewed occasionally for Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, Movement disorders, Journal of Neural Transmission, Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, Journal of Parkinson's Disease, Brain Sciences, Languages, and Acta Neurologica Scandinavica.

I am currently advising one doctoral student, Jenny Holmberg.

Major grants (PI)
Swedish Research Council (Dnr 2011-2294). Project grants. 3,995,000 SEK
The Swedish Research Council (No. 2009-946). Means for national postdoc, 1,402,000 SEK

Postdoctoral experience

2009-2011 Postdoc at the Unit for Speech Therapy, Department of Clinical Science, Umeå University.
2008-2009 The ESRC Center for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice and School of Linguistics and English language at Bangor university, Wales.

Active collabrorations

Local and national collaborators

Professor Lena Hartelius, Unit for Speech Therapy at the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology, University of Gothenburg.
Professor Ellika Schalling, Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala university
Professor Patrik Blomstedt, the DBS unit at Region Västerbotten, and the Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Neuroscience, Umeå University.
Med. Dr. Linda Sandström, Humlab, Umeå university.

International collaborators

Professor Max Little, Aston University, UK.
Dr. Markus Brückl, Institute for Language and Communication. Kommunikationswissenschaft, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany