Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies

Research Assistant Professor

Dr Nizhuan Wang holds a PhD in Communications Information Engineering and Control from Shanghai Maritime University. He has held academic positions including Assistant Professor at Shenzhen University, Full Professor at Jiangsu Ocean University, and Associate Researcher at ShanghaiTech University from 2016 to 2024. His research interests encompass Neural Engineering, Neuroimaging, Neurolinguistics and Associated Disorders, Occupational Neuroplasticity, and Artificial Intelligence. He has published over 80 scientific papers in leading journals such as Human Brain Mapping, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, as well as top-tier conferences like AAAI and MICCAI. Dr Wang is a senior member of the Chinese Biomedical Engineering Society and serves on the Board of the Shanghai Association for Noetic Science.

Dr Wang’s current research focuses on the speech/language Brain-Machine Interface (BMI), emphasising two primary aspects: 1) the development of novel non-invasive BMI systems with high spatial and temporal resolution specifically designed for speech or language applications, and 2) the decoding and translation of brain activity into speech or text using non-invasive BMI systems, aiming to aid in the recovery and communication of patients with speech or language disorders.

Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies

Research Assistant Professor

Dr Kaile Zhang received her PhD in Linguistics from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests focus on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying speech perception, employing both behavioural and neuroimaging methods. She has explored how talker variability affects speech perception in various listening conditions, including environments with auditory or visual distractions. Her work also examines how children and second language learners acquire the ability to accommodate speech variability and investigates whether music training can facilitate speech normalization. She was awarded a Young Scientist Fund (2024-2026) from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, aiming to use EEG and MRI to reveal how speech cues at different levels (linguistic and paralinguistic) are decoded and integrated to form our final perception. Her research has been published in international refereed journals such as Brain and Language, Journal of Phonetics, and Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.