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‘I remember as a child wondering how it would feel to be able to recognise words in such mysterious languages.’ Dr MARIA PAOLA BISSIRI RESEARCH FELLOW, SPEECH AND HEARING SCIENCES I am Dr Maria Paola Bissiri, I hold a PhD in Phonetics from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich in Germany. In my research work I compare native with non-native speech productions and investigate speech perception in different languages. I have been investigating non-native German and non-native English speech, and speech perception by native German, English, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Swedish and Mandarin listeners. O E R A T I N G L B WOMEN RESEARCHERS INSPIRING RESEARCH CAREER JOURNEYS I have worked as a Research Fellow in several institutions across Europe: the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, the Charles University in Prague, the University of the Basque Country in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain), the University of Bristol, and the Technical University of Dresden (Germany). I am happy to work as a researcher, because this allows me to learn something new every day. I have always been fascinated by language. I remember listening to foreign languages as a child and wondering how it would feel to be able to recognise words in such mysterious languages. I grew up in Sardinia from Sardinian-Italian bilingual parents. Sardinian, an archaic Romance lang uage, is a UNESCO endangered language.