Dr Stuart Cunningham

BEng, PhD

School of Allied Health, Pharmacy, Nursing and Midwifery

Senior Lecturer

s.cunningham@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2421
Room 127, 362 Mushroom Lane

Full contact details

Dr Stuart Cunningham
School of Allied Health, Pharmacy, Nursing and Midwifery
Room 127
362 Mushroom Lane
Sheffield
S10 2TS
Profile

Dr Cunningham is a senior lecturer in Human Communication Sciences. Prior to joining the department he worked as a research associate in the department of Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering at Barnsley Hospital.

He has previously worked as a research associate in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield.

He obtained a BEng in Software Engineering and PhD in Computer Science from the University of Sheffield.

Research interests

Robust automatic speech recognition. The use of speech technology in assistive technology and speech and language therapy.

  • Auditory-inspired representations of speech signals and their application in automatic speech recognition.

  • The perception of speech in adverse acoustic conditions.

Current projects

  • Speech Therapy through Articulation Therapy - with Mark Hawley, Peter Cudd, Rebecca Palmer, and Pam Enderby.
    University of Sheffield.
  • Natural Speech Technology - PI Steve Renals (University of Edinburgh). EPSRC Programme Grant.
  • Voice Input Voice Output Communication Aid - PI Mark Hawley. NIHR i4i programme.
  • Development of test of audio visual speech perception for children - with Dilys Treharne and Harriet Crook. British Society of Audiology.

Collaborators

  • Mark Hawley, School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield.
  • Pam Enderby, School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield.
  • Phil Green, Department of Computer Science, The University of Sheffield.
Publications

Journal articles

  • Pennington L, Cunningham S, Hiu S, Khattab G & Ryan V (2023) . Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation, 10(4), 1-94.
  • Alhinti L, Cunningham S & Christensen H (2023) . PLOS ONE, 18(8).
  • Clarke ZC, Judge S, Fryer K, Cunningham S, Toogood J & Hawley MS (2023) . Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 39(2), 110-122.
  • Alhinti L, Christensen H & Cunningham S (2021) . Speech Communication, 126, 44-60.
  • Jeffery T, Cunningham S & Whiteside SP (2018) . Journal of Voice , 32(5), 644.E11-644.E24.
  • Judge S, Hawley MS, Cunningham S & Kirton A (2015) . Journal of Medical Engineering and Technology, 39(7), 448-453.
  • Herrmann F, Cunningham SP & Whiteside SP (2014) . Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 44(1), 59-74.
  • Weinel J, Cunningham S, Griffiths D, Roberts S & Picking R (2014) . Leonardo Music Journal, 24(24), 17-20.
  • Cunningham S & Grout V (2014) . Multimedia Tools and Applications, 72(3), 2299-2320.
  • Creer S, Cunningham S, Green PD & Yamagishi J (2012) . Computer Speech and Language, 27(6), 1178-1193.
  • Hawley M, Cunningham S, Green P, Enderby P, Palmer R, Segal S & O'Neill P (2012) A Voice-Input Voice-Output Communication Aid for People with Severe Speech Impairment. IEEE Transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering, 1(21), 23-31.
  • Ahmad Khan Z, Green P, Creer S & Cunningham S (2011) . AAC Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 27(1), 61-66.
  • Creer S, Cunningham S, Hawley M & Wallis P (2011) . Applied Artificial Intelligence, 25(6), 445-473.
  • Payr S, Wallis P, Cunningham S & Hawley M (2009) Research on social engagement with a rabbitic user interface. Roots for the Future of Ambient Intelligence Adjunct Proceedings 3rd European Conference on Ambient Intelligence Ami 2009, 65-68.
  • Herrmann F, Whiteside SP & Cunningham S (2009) An acoustic investigation into coarticulation and speech motor control: High vs. low frequency syllables.. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustical Society of America..
  • Herrmann F, Whiteside SP & Cunningham S (2008) . Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 4.
  • Hawley MS, Enderby P, Green P, Cunningham S, Brownsell S, Carmichael J, Parker M, Hatzis A, O'Neill P & Palmer R (2007) . Med Eng Phys, 29(5), 586-593.
  • Parker M, Cunningham S, Enderby P, Hawley M & Green P (2006) . Clin Linguist Phon, 20(2-3), 149-156.
  • Cooke M, Barker J, Cunningham S & Shao X (2006) . J Acoust Soc Am, 120(5 Pt 1), 2421-2424.
  • Palmer R & Enderby P (2004) The effect of three practice conditions,on the consistency of chronic dysarthric speech. JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY, 12(4), 183-188.
  • Green PD () A voice-input voice-output communication aid for people with severe speech impairment.. IEEE Trans on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering.

Book chapters

  • Cunningham S, Nicholls S & Owens S (2017) , SpringerBriefs in Computer Science (pp. 57-66). Springer International Publishing
  • Rutter B & Cunningham S (2013) The Recording of Audio and Video Data. In Muller N & Ball M (Ed.), Research Methods in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics A Practical Guide John Wiley & Sons
  • Creer S, Green PD, Cunningham SP & Yamagishi J (2010) Building personalized synthetic voices for individuals with dysarthria using the HTS toolkit In Mullennix JW & Stern SE (Ed.), Computer Synthesized Speech Technologies: tools for aiding impairment (pp. 92-115). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
  • Creer S, Green PD, Cunningham S & Yamagishi J (2010) Building personalised synthetic voices for individuals with dysarthria using the HTS toolkit In Mullennix J & Stern S (Ed.), Computer Synthesized Speech Technologies Medical Info Science Reference
  • Cunningham S, Grout V & Picking R () , Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction (pp. 235-263). IGI Global

Conference proceedings

  • Brooke A, Crossley M, Lloyd H & Cunningham S (2025) . 2025 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) (pp 1-8), 26 August 2025 - 29 August 2025.
  • Brooke A, Crossley M, Lloyd H & Cunningham S (2025) . Segah 2025 2025 IEEE 13th Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health
  • Charlie M, Fryer K, Judge S, Cunningham S, Palmer R & Hawley M (2024) Incorporating voice activated communication aids into everyday communication. Communication Matters - The Journal of Communication Matters / ISAAC (UK), Vol. 38(2) (pp 22-25). Leeds, UK, 8 September 2023 - 8 September 2023.
  • Davies L, Vagapov Y, Grout V, Cunningham S & Anuchin A (2021) . 2021 28th International Workshop on Electric Drives: Improving Reliability of Electric Drives (IWED) (pp 1-6), 27 January 2021 - 29 January 2021.
  • Alhinti L, Cunningham S & Christensen H (2020) . Interspeech 2020 (pp 4821-4825). Shanghai, China, 25 October 2020 - 25 October 2020.
  • Sehgal S, Cunningham S & Green P (2019) . 2018 IEEE Spoken Language Technology Workshop (SLT) (pp 13-20). Athens, Greece, 18 December 2018 - 18 December 2018.
  • Sehgal S, Cunningham S & Green P (2018) . 2018 IEEE Spoken Language Technology Workshop (SLT) (pp 13-20), 18 December 2018 - 21 December 2018.
  • Coy A, Green P, Cunningham S, Christensen H, Atria JJ, Rudzicz F, Malavasi M & Desideri L (2018) Embedding speech technology into intelligent tutoring systems using the CloudCAST speech technology platform. Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics, Vol. 10858 LNCS (pp 421-424)
  • Owens S & Cunningham S (2017) . Proceedings of the 12th International Audio Mostly Conference on Augmented and Participatory Sound and Music Experiences (pp 1-7)
  • Weinel J & Cunningham S (2017) . Proceedings of the 12th International Audio Mostly Conference on Augmented and Participatory Sound and Music Experiences (pp 1-7)
  • Cunningham S, Green P, Christensen H, Atria JJ, Coy A, Malavasi M, Desideri L & Rudzicz F (2017) . Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, Vol. 242 (pp 322-329). Netherlands
  • Nicolao M, Christensen H, Cunningham S, Green P & Hain T (2016) A Framework for Collecting Realistic Recordings of Dysarthric Speech - the homeService Corpus. Proceedings of LREC 2016. Portorož, Slovenia, 24 May 2016 - 24 May 2016.
  • Sehgal S & Cunningham S (2015) . Proceedings of SLPAT 2015: 6th Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies, Vol. W15-51 (pp 65-71). Dresden, Germany
  • Green P, Marxer R, Cunningham S, Christensen H, Rudzicz F, Yancheva M, Coy A, Malavasi M & Desideri L (2015) . Proceedings of SLPAT 2015: 6th Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies (pp 97-102), September 2015 - September 2015.
  • Herrmann F, Cunningham S & Whiteside SP (2015) Bark and Hz scaled F2 Locus equations: Sex differences and individual differences.. pp.1-5 retrieved from: https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs-proceedings/ICPhS2015/Papers/ICPHS0351.pdf. Glasgow, UK: the University of Glasgow
  • Christensen H, Nicolao M, Cunningham S, Green P, Deena S & Hain T (2015) . IET International Conference on Technologies for Active and Assisted Living (TechAAL) (pp 6 .-6 .)
  • Gemmeke JF, Sehgal S, Cunningham S & Van hamme H (2014) . 2014 IEEE Spoken Language Technology Workshop (SLT) (pp 248-253), 7 December 2014 - 10 December 2014.
  • Christensen H, Casanueva I, Cunningham S, Green P & Hain T (2014) . 2014 IEEE Spoken Language Technology Workshop (SLT) (pp 254-259), 7 December 2014 - 10 December 2014.
  • Stockton R & Cunningham S (2014) An investigation into user perceptions of privacy and trust and their real-world practices. Proceedings of the 10th International Network Conference INC 2014 (pp 139-149)
  • Griffiths D, Cunningham S & Weinel J (2013) . Proceedings of the 8th Audio Mostly Conference (pp 1-4)
  • Cunningham S, Weinel J, Roberts S, Grout V & Griffiths D (2013) . Proceedings of the 8th Audio Mostly Conference (pp 1-6)
  • Christensen H, Casanuevo I, Cunningham S, Green P & Hain T (2013) HomeService: Voice-enabled assistive technology in the home using cloud-based automatic speech recognition. Slpat 2013 4th Workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies Slpat 2013 Workshop Proceedings (pp 29-34)
  • Christensen H, Cunningham S, Fox C, Green P & Hain T (2012) A comparative study of adaptive, automatic recognition of disordered speech. 13th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association 2012 Interspeech 2012, Vol. 2 (pp 1774-1777)
  • Cunningham S, Grout V & Hebblewhite R (2012) Computer game audio: The unappreciated scholar of the half-life generation. Audio Mostly 2006 A Conference on Sound in Games Am 2006 Proceedings (pp 9-14)
  • Allemand S, Wright M & Cunningham S (2011) Implementation of ambisonics technology for surround sound performance. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Internet Technologies and Applications Ita 11 (pp 609-610)
  • Cunningham S & Grout V (2009) Audio compression exploiting repetition (ACER): Challenges and solutions. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Internet Technologies and Applications Ita 09 (pp 359-366)
  • Creer SM, Cunningham SP, Green PD & Fatema K (2009) Personalizing synthetic voices for people with progressive speech disorders: judging voice similarity. INTERSPEECH 2009: 10TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPEECH COMMUNICATION ASSOCIATION 2009, VOLS 1-5 (pp 1451-1454)
  • Herrmann F, Whiteside SP & Cunningham S (2008) . The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 123(5_Supplement) (pp 3071-3071)
  • Grout V, Cunningham S & Hebblewhite R (2008) An illustrative discussion of different perspectives in network engineering. Proceedings of the 7th International Network Conference INC 2008 (pp 91-104)
  • Hawley M, Cunningham S, Cardinaux F, Coy A, O'Neill P, Seghal S & Enderby P (2007) Challenges in developing a Voice Input Voice Output Communication Aid for People with Severe Dysarthria. CHALLENGES FOR ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY, Vol. 20 (pp 363-367)
  • Davies G, Cunningham S & Grout V (2007) Visual stimulus for aural pleasure. Audio Mostly 2007 2nd Conference on Interaction with Sound Conference Proceedings (pp 25-30)
  • Robinson N & Cunningham S (2007) Security enhancement in public ICT services in wales. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Internet Technologies and Applications Ita 07 (pp 495-504)
  • Hawley MS, Enderby P, Green P, Cunningham S & Palmer R (2006) Development of a voice-input voice-output communication aid (VIVOCA) for people with severe dysarthria. COMPUTERS HELPING PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS, PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 4061 (pp 882-885)
  • Cunningham S, Grout V & Hebblewhite R (2006) Computer game audio: The unappreciated scholar of the half-life generation. Audio Mostly 2006 Proceedings of the Audio Mostly Conference A Conference on Sound in Games (pp 9-14)
  • Grout V, Picking R, Cunningham S & Hebblewhite R (2006) Realistic large-scale network optimisation. Proceedings of the 6th International Network Conference INC 2006 (pp 121-129)
  • Hawley MS, Green P, Enderby P, Cunningham S & Moore RK (2005) Speech technology for e-inclusion of people with physical disabilities and disordered speech. 9th European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology (pp 445-448)
  • Hatzis A, Green PD, Carmichael J, Cunningham SP, Palmer R, Parker M & O'Neill P (2003) An integrated toolkit deploying speech technology for computer based speech training with application to dysarthric speakers.. INTERSPEECH
  • Cunningham S & Cooke M (2000) On the intelligibility of bandpass-filtered speech. BRITISH JOURNAL OF AUDIOLOGY, Vol. 34(2) (pp 104-105)
  • Alhinti L, Christensen H & Cunningham S () Towards the understanding of communicating emotions for people with dysarthria. Proceedings of WSPD 2018. Mysore, India, 8 September 2018 - 8 September 2018.
  • Green P, Marxer R, Cunningham S, Christensen H, Rudzicz F, Yancheva M, Coy A, Malavasi M, Desideri L & Tamburini F () . Interspeech 2016 (pp 1608-1612)
  • Creer SM, Cunningham SP, Green PD & Fatema K () . Interspeech 2009 (pp 1427-1430)