Staff Profiles
Full-Time Consultants
Prof Peter French (Director) is President of the International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics, a Fellow of the International Society for Phonetic Sciences, a Member of the International Association of Forensic Linguists and a Fellow of the Institute of Acoustics. He is Honorary Professor in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. As one of the world's most experienced experts in the field of forensic speech, language and audio analysis, he carries out work on forensic phonetics, linguistics, sound enhancement and the authentication of recordings.
Download Prof French's summary CV in pdf format.
Philip Harrison (Director) has fifteen years experience at J P French Associates in forensic voice comparison, transcription, authentication, enhancement and other related areas, having worked on over 1000 cases. He holds a first class honours degree (B.Eng) in Acoustical Engineering from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton and an MA with Distinction in Phonetics and Phonology from the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. He is actively involved in academic research in the field of forensic speech analysis (download MA dissertation titled 'Variability of Formant Measurements') and regularly delivers lectures and presentations to universities in the UK and abroad. He has given expert evidence in both criminal and civil cases.
Download Philip Harrison's summary CV in pdf format.
Louisa Stevens (Director) has worked on over 400 cases in the areas of forensic speaker comparison, transcription and disputed utterance analysis as well as many miscellaneous cases. She holds an honours degree (BA) in Languages and Linguistics and a master degree (MA) in Linguistics from the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. She has appeared as an expert witness in the Crown Court.
Download Louisa Stevens' summary CV in pdf format.
Asfah Bhagdin is a native speaker of English, Urdu and Panjabi and works mainly within the areas of transcription, speaker comparison and disputed utterance analysis involving these languages. She holds a BA (Hons) degree from the University of Leeds in Language Studies with Psychology and an MA in Language and Linguistic Science from the University of York. She has given expert evidence to the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) and the High Court of the Sindh.
Download Asfah Bhagdin's summary CV in pdf format.
Part-Time Consultants
Please note that our part-time consultants work exclusively for J P French Associates in forensic cases. Any independent enquiries will be re-directed to the main office.
Prof Paul Foulkes works on forensic voice comparison, speaker profiling and transcription cases on a part-time basis in addition to being a Professor in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. He has a distinguished academic career having held positions at the University of Cambridge, the University of Newcastle and the University of Leeds. He has published widely in the areas of socio-linguistics and forensic phonetics.
Download Prof Foulkes' summary CV in pdf format.
Dr Shahela Hamid holds degrees from the Universities of Dhaka, Reading and York, including a PhD on language maintenance and shift among a Sylheti community in the UK. She is a native speaker of Bangla and Urdu and has high level proficiency in Sylheti and other Bangla dialects. Dr Hamid has held academic posts at the Universities of Dhaka and Birmingham. For the past three years she has worked as a consultant forensic linguist with J P French Associates, undertaking transcription of recordings in Bengali and Sylheti and assisting with speaker comparison cases. Her book 'Language use and identity: The Sylheti Bangladeshis in Leeds' is published by Peter Lang, UK.
Download Dr Hamid's summary CV in pdf format.
Dr Ghada Khattab is a Lecturer in phonetics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and as a native speaker of Arabic undertakes casework involving recordings in Arabic and Arabic accented English. She holds qualifications from the American University of Beirut and the University of Leeds, and has published widely on English-Arabic bilingualism.
Download Dr Khattab's summary CV in pdf format.
Dr Krzysztof Kredens is a native speaker of Polish and an experienced forensic linguist. His forensic work with J P French Associates involves recordings in Polish. The cases in which he acts concern transcription, resolution of disputed content and speaker comparison. He has substantial experience of university teaching and research in forensic linguistics and is the only forensic linguist in the UK who can undertake analyses of spoken Polish.
Download Dr Kredens' summary CV in pdf format.
Ms Burcu Onder is an expert on spoken Turkish. She holds degrees from Hacettepe University in Ankara and from the University of York, UK, the latter being an MSc in Forensic Speech Science. She has worked with J P French Associates since 2005. Her casework involves transcription, speaker comparison and disputed utterance analysis where the recordings are in Turkish. Formerly a forensic linguist and a speech analyst within the Turkish Ministry of Justice, she is a registered forensic expert in the Justice Commission of Ankara.
Download Ms Onder's summary CV in pdf format.
Dr Dominic Watt is Senior Lecturer in Forensic Speech Science at the University of York, and undertakes forensic phonetic casework on a part-time basis. He has degrees in linguistics and phonetics from the Universities of Edinburgh and Newcastle, and has held teaching and research positions in the speech sciences at institutions throughout the UK and in Germany. He has published numerous articles on sociophonetics and phonological variation in British English.
Download Dr Watt's summary CV in pdf format.
Research Staff
Dr Frantz Clermont [PhD (Australian National University, Institute of Advanced Studies); MSc, BSc (Polytechnic Institute of New York University)] is currently acting as research scientist at J P French Associates. He is conducting research on various aspects of the biometric evaluation of speech signals, including the automated acquisition of acoustic-phonetic and acoustic-articulatory measurements. He has recently supervised a joint project with graduate students at the University of York (UK), which has yielded a sizeable body of multi-speaker acoustic data to serve as a reference set for studying individual speech characteristics. Dr Clermont has held academic posts (teaching and research) at the University of New South Wales (Australia), the University of Tsukuba (Japan), the American University of Paris (France) and the University of Lund (Sweden). He has published refereed articles in the field of speech science and technology, which have appeared in international journals and conference proceedings. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a foundation member of the Australian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA), a member of the National Review Board for ASSTA, and a member of the Acoustical Society of America.
View Dr Clermont's selected publications and conference presentations
For reprints email frantz.clermont@jpfrench.com.
Administrative Staff
Virginie Harrison has recently joined J P French Associates as the practice manager. She has an academic background in classics and linguistics and has worked for the past 5 years in the areas of business administration, finance and client liaison. She is the central point of contact within the company and provides advice and information relating to all aspects of the cases undertaken.
Security
Dr Jane French (Director) is Company Secretary and Security Controller.