Van L . Lawrence Fellowship

2022 Van Lawrence Fellowship presented to Ian Howell

The National Association of Teachers of Singing and the Voice Foundation named Ian Howell as the 2022 Van L. Lawrence Fellowship Award winner. Howell had the opportunity to attend the annual Symposium on Care of the Professional Voice and received a $2,000 award toward his research project.

As the award winner, Howell plans to conduct a two-step human research study. The proposed research study title is, “Does Contact Quotient (CQDEG) Rise in the Classical Cisgender Female Extended Upper Range? Validated EGG Derived per Glottal Cycle Contact Duration Using Transnasal High-Speed Laryngoscopy.” His project seeks to recalibrate the understanding of both the function of the understudied upper extension of the cisgender female classical voice, and the limitations of electroglottographic (EGG) technology. He outlines the first part as gathering calibrated audio and clean EGG signals from a small group of cisgender female classical singers.

“I have completed a case study of this step and will use these data to validate and confirm those results,” Howell explains. “The second step requires capturing and analyzing high- speed laryngoscopic video signals of selected pitch patterns captured in the first step.”

Howell acknowledges the findings from his research may affect multiple subject areas.

“My research directly addresses bias within the models used for teaching voice pedagogy,” he says. “These models bleed into applied voice teaching as well, and shape what we expect a voice to be able to do.”

He strongly believes that having accurate models is essential.

“When these models are even partially inaccurate, we risk more than pushing an incomplete paradigm,” he explains. “We risk limiting our basic understanding of the singing voice. We risk categorizing entire ways of singing as exceptions to the otherwise normal — typically cisgender, male, western classical genre — way of doing things.”

Howell thanks and credits the work of Dr. Christian Herbst for how the voice pedagogy community is starting to further explore the accuracy of CDdEGG measures more broadly. Howell plans for his project to build on and extend this area to explore “a commonly heard but frequently understudied range of the cisgender female singing voice.”

Ian Howell

2023 Van L. Lawrence Fellowship

Application Deadline: Nov. 15, 2022

The Van L. Lawrence Fellowship was created to honor Van L. Lawrence, M.D. for his outstanding contribution to voice, and particularly to recognize the importance of the interdisciplinary education he fostered among laryngologists and singing teachers. The Fellowship is a joint award from the Voice Foundation and the Foundation Heritage Fund of the NATS Endowment.

Candidates for the Van L. Lawrence Fellowship shall be:

1. A member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing who is actively engaged in teaching. 2. The Fellowship shall be awarded to candidates who have demonstrated excellence in their professions as singing teachers, and who have shown interest in and knowledge of voice science.

Members of NATS wishing to apply for the fellowship should write a letter of intent to

The Voice Foundation along with your CV — combined into one PDF. Include the area and methods of your proposed study plan. E-mail: office@voicefoundation.org

a. Current application of scientific knowledge in the studio; b. The area of intended study and/or research project and the study plan and methods; c. How the Fellowship and research project will benefit your teaching; d. NATS Chapter to which you belong; e. A detailed curriculum vita. The fellowship will be awarded at the next Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice May 31– June 4, 2023, in Philadelphia For more information, contact The Voice Foundation at 215-735-7999 or email office@voicefoundation.org. Visit nats.org for complete application instructions. Foundation Heritage Fund of the NATS Endowment