UC app helps people make voices more masculine, feminine

UC professor talks to the Cincinnati Enquirer about new voice-coaching app

The Cincinnati Enquirer highlighted a new voice-coaching app developed by an electrical engineering professor who studies intelligent technologies to improve human health and wellness.

Associate Professor Vesna Novak in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science created the TruVox app to help users, particularly transgender people, speak in a more masculine or feminine way to match their gender expression.

UC engineering associate professor Vesna Novak is using machine learning to study physiological synchrony, the phenomenon in which the heartbeats and respiration between two people engaged in conversation or collaboration mirror each other.

Vesna Novak. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand

The app helps people visualize aspects of voice such as pitch and volume in real time. The app is free and open to the public.

She will present the app at the 26th annual International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction this month.

Novak interviewed 20 transgender people to learn more about what they would like or dislike in a voice-coaching app. She also worked with experts on communication disorders, speech-language pathologists and a psychologist to develop the voice exercises in the app.

Unlike online tutorials, the app provides real-time feedback, so users can see the adjustments in their voice as they talk.

Read the Cincinnati Enquirer story.

Featured image at top: UC Associate Professor Vesna Novak developed a new app to help people match their voice to their gender expression. Photo/iStockPhoto

Try the TruVox app

Try Vesna Novak's TruVox app.

Related Stories

1

Be careful when clicking “buy now, pay later”

December 10, 2025

When checking off your holiday lists, it’s hard to keep track of your budget. Sue Heilmayer, executive director of the University of Cincinnati’s Alphaugh Family Economics Center, spoke with Local 12 on the risks of relying on buy now, pay later apps to do your everyday spending.

2

UC alumna named a 2026 Marshall Scholar

December 10, 2025

The British Government announced the 43 American students who will receive Marshall Scholarships for 2026, including UC alumna Taylor Allgood. The new recipients will begin their graduate studies at leading universities in the United Kingdom next September.