Faculty/Staff/PhD

Academic Faculty

bahr, ruth

Bahr, Ruth Huntley, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BCS-CL

Professor

Phone: 813.974.7161
Office: PCD 4024

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Ruth Bahr is a Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders with a Secondary Affiliate Appointment in the Department of Otolaryngology, Morsani College of Medicine.  Dr. Bahr joined the faculty in 1995 and has served on numerous departmental, college and University committees and just completed a term as Dean for the Office of Graduate Studies. Her primary research interests include spelling and written language, the nature of phonological representations in dialect speakers and second language learners, between and within speaker variability in forensic situations, and voice production in individuals with vocal disorders. In addition, she has been working in the field of Forensic Phonetics for over 35 years, where she has specialized in speaker identification, tape authentication, and gunshot analysis, testifying in numerous trials. She is a Fellow in the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the International Society of Phonetic Sciences. She received the Svend Smith Award for her work in applied phonetics and currently serves on the Executive Board of the International Association of Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA). She is recognized as a Board Certified Specialist in Child Language (BCS-CL).  

Education
Ph.D University of Florida 1987
M.A. Auburn University 1981
B.S. with Honors University of Virginia 1979

Recent Scholarly Activity

Selected Books and Chapters

  • Lee, S-H., Specter, S., Bahr, R., Burns, C., & Wiranowska, M. (Eds.) (2026). Perspectives in Performing Arts Medicine Practice II: Occupational Health, Public Health, Arts for Healing. Springer. 

  • Gosy, M., & Bahr, R. H. (2026). From spirants to approximants: The acoustic properties of /l/ and /j/ in Hungarian. In Ball, M. J. (Ed.). Approximants: Their Phonetics and Phonology (pp. 223-241). University of Toronto Press. 

  • Bahr, R. H., Silliman, E. R., & Conover, L. (2024). More than Spelling Accuracy: Linguistic Feature Patterns in the Misspellings of Superior, Average, and Poor Spellers. In Batbatsouli, E. (Ed.) Multilingual acquisition and learning: An ecosystemic view to diversity (Vol. 67; pp. 586-612). John Benjamins Publishing Company. 

Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications

  • Halsey J.N., MacIsaac M.F., Vieux J., Sommer C.L., Wright J.M., Bahr R.H., Ahumada L, Rottgers S.A. Artificial Intelligence-Based Hypernasality Diagnosis Using CAPS-A-AM Rated Speech Samples in Pediatric Velopharyngeal Dysfunction. Manuscript accepted. 

  • Awan, S. N., Bensoussan, Y., Watts, S., Boyer, M., Budinsky, R., & Bahr, R.H. (2025). Influence of Recording Instrumentation on Measurements of Voice in Sentence Contexts: Use of Smartphones and Tablets. Frontiers in Digital Health, 7,  

  • Gosy, M., & Bahr, R.H. (2025). Word duration in the spontaneous speech of an agglutinating language. Journal of Connected Speech, 1(3), 286-313.

  • Awan, S. N., Bahr, R., Watts, S., Boyer, M., Budinsky, R., Bensoussan, Y., & Bridge2AI-Voice Consortium. (2024). Evidence-Based Recommendations for Tablet Recordings From the Bridge2AI-Voice Acoustic Experiments. Journal of Voice.

  • Awan, S. N., Bahr, R., Watts, S., Boyer, M., Budinsky, R., Bridge2AI Voice Consortium, & Bensoussan, Y. (2024). Validity of Acoustic Measures Obtained Using Various Recording Methods Including Smartphones With and Without Headset Microphones. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 1-19. 

  • Silliman, E. R., Bahr, R. H., Danzak, R., & Brea-Spahn, M. R. (2024). Coordinating Multiple Language Levels in Writing: Finding Strengths in Students with Specific Learning Disabilities. Topics in Language Disorders, 44(2), 111-130. 

  • Conover, L., & Bahr, R. H. (2023). Covert contrasts and categorical perception: A comparison of two measurement tools. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 37(2). 143-156.  

  • Smith, B., & Bahr, R. H. (2022). The Effect of a Climate Event on Voice Related Processes in Seniors. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Special Interest Group 3 Newsletter.