REACH Student Wins Prestigious ARO Scholars Award

Stella Alumonah, a student researcher in the Research, Equity, and Access in Communication and Hearing (REACH) program, has been selected for the prestigious ARO Scholars Program, a national initiative supported by the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO). She is one of just four undergraduates across the country to receive this honor for 2025.

Alumonah’s award includes a stipend to support summer research and full funding to attend the 2026 ARO MidWinter Meeting, the world’s leading scientific gathering in auditory neuroscience, held next February in Puerto Rico. As part of the program, she will also engage in professional development activities and mentorship with leaders in the field.

A Baltimore County native, Alumonah is advised by Professor Jonathan Simon, who holds joint appointments in the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Department of Biology. Her project, “Automated Word Timing from Speech Audio for Brain Signal Analysis,” aims to improve how scientists align spoken words with brain responses recorded during magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiments.

Her research was conducted in the Computational Auditory Neural Systems Laboratory, which is part of ISR’s neuroscience and signal processing research ecosystem. The lab focuses on how the brain encodes and interprets complex auditory information, a key interest area for both basic science and biomedical applications.

"Being selected for this scholar's program is an incredible honor”, said Alumonah. “I am beyond excited for the opportunity it provides me to learn from leading experts in auditory neuroscience and expand my research."

Alumonah is currently pursuing interests in signal processing and control systems, with aspirations to attend graduate school and work at the intersection of engineering, medicine, and human health. She is a member of the Black Engineers Society and recently joined the QUEST Honors Program, a multidisciplinary, application-only program for high-achieving undergraduates across engineering, business, and computer science.

“Stella’s research is really pushing forward what our lab is able to accomplish”, said Simon. “By using Large Language Models to extract the timing information of words in a speech stream, her work allows us to efficiently measure how the brain processes these words, both in sound and in meaning.”

ISR’s strategic focus in neuroscience and signal processing continues to support transformative research on how humans perceive and process sound. The institute’s interdisciplinary model brings together faculty from engineering, biology, and computer science to solve some of the most complex challenges in systems science and health technology.

Learn more about the ARO Scholars Program at aro.org/aro-scholars-program.

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