Jorge C. Lucero

My research is on the physics of voice production: how airflow, tissue mechanics, and acoustics interact to create the human voice. Over three decades it has centered on the biomechanics and acoustics of phonation — vocal fold oscillation dynamics, phonation threshold pressure, source-tract acoustic coupling, and speech articulatory patterns. Current work addresses the acoustic correlates of perceptual voice quality dimensions and the controlled simulation of voice disorder mechanisms.

Alongside the modelling, the work has moved toward tools that put research-grade analysis in the hands of clinicians: PhonaLab, a web platform for acoustic voice analysis used by 3,700+ clinicians and researchers in 80+ countries; SimuVox, a physics-based voice synthesizer for simulating disordered voice quality; and Acoustic Measures of Voice Quality, an open reference on the measures themselves, where every published value is tied to the software, settings and task that produced it.

Recent

Sep 2026 PhonaLab reached the final of NTT DATA's eAwards Brazil — one of six finalists chosen from 290 entries across all categories, pitched in person at the Museu da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo

Receiving the PhonaLab finalist certificate at the ceremony.
Aug 2026 Paper published in Journal of Voice: "Optimal Acoustic Parameter Subsets for Dimension-Specific Voice Quality Prediction" — doi: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2026.07.051 (Open Access)
Jul 2026 Paper presented at the 32nd International Congress on Sound and Vibration, in Istanbul: "Aerodynamic Asymmetry in Inspiratory vs. Expiratory Phonation." (PDF)
Jun 2026 PhonaLab selected for FAPDF DeepTech Phase 2 (ranked 11th of 126 applicants)
Apr 2026 Paper published in Journal of Voice: "Algorithm Verification and Concurrent Validity of a Web-Based Platform for Multiparametric Acoustic Voice Quality Indices" — doi:10.1016/j.jvoice.2026.04.009 (Open Access)

Projects

PhonaLab

Web-based acoustic voice analysis for speech-language pathologists. Implements validated multiparametric indices (AVQI, ABI, CSID, CPPS, GNE) via Parselmouth/Praat. Features include Voice Analyzer, Pitch Visualizer, Spectrogram Generator, Spectral Analysis, and Session Compare. No installation, no audio storage, works in the browser.

3,700+ users · 80+ countries · 10,000+ analyses · Peer-reviewed in Journal of Voice (2026)

SimuVox

Physics-based voice synthesis software. Models vocal fold vibration, glottal aerodynamics, and acoustic propagation in a 44-tube vocal tract. Used for research on disordered voice production and perceptual assessment training.

Awards: SBFa 2013, 2015, 2016, 2020 · Voice Foundation Brazil 2017, 2021

Acoustic Measures of Voice Quality

An open, living reference on the acoustic measures used to assess the voice, written for speech-language pathologists and voice scientists. Every reference value is published with the pipeline that produced it — software, version, settings, speech task and language — and where no compatible reference exists, the absence is declared rather than filled with a borrowed number.

Text CC BY 4.0 · code MIT · versioned DOIs on Zenodo · 10.5281/zenodo.22739049

Just for fun

Small free tools that hide pictures in places you would not expect. Both run entirely in the browser, so nothing you load is ever uploaded.

Halftone QR

Puts a picture inside a QR code that still scans. Each QR module is split into a fine grid: the centre carries the code and the rest shows a dithered version of the image, following the technique Erik and Martin Demaine use for their QR prints.

Picture in a QR code · PNG or SVG download for printing and laser cutting

Spectral Ink

Hides a picture inside a song, where only a spectrogram can see it. The picture is drawn as faint noise in a narrow band just below 16 kHz, kept under the threshold of hearing. The tool estimates how audible it is from the threshold in quiet and the music's masking, and encodes the song to MP3 and back to check whether the picture survives. A Reveal tab shows the spectrogram of any sound file.

Picture in a song · audibility estimate · MP3 survival test · WAV download