People and contacts

Please contact us if you have any questions about the research project.
Raili Hilden

Professor, scientific leader (retired 11/2025->)

University of Helsinki

My role is the scientific leader of the consortium, and I am also in charge of the pedagogical and language assessment related components of the endeavor. My duties further include maintaining contacts with the collaborators. With questions related to administrative tasks, please contact Anna von Zansen (contact information below)

Expertise: language pedagogy, language teaching, language assessment, teacher study, teacher education, oral language skills, social impact of assessments, learner autonomy

Mikko Kurimo

Professor

Aalto University

My role is to lead speech technology research and connect with the other related projects in my research group at Aalto university. 

Mikko Kuronen

Senior Lecturer

University of Jyväskylä

In the project, I contribute to the phonetic analyses of the L2 data and study the underlying phonetic components which are relevant in spoken L2 assessment. I will also contribute to the training of teachers to do rating of learners’ speaking performances.

Expertise: Phonetics, phonology, pronunciation assessment, listener ratings

Elina Nurminen

Project researcher

University of Jyväskylä

I work as a researcher on the project. I also develop and assess speaking tasks. 

Expertise: Learning and teaching of Finnish as a second and foreign language; language assessment 

Anna von Zansen

University Researcher, administrative leader

University of Helsinki

I work as the administrative leader of the project. My work focuses on the pedagogic part of the research project. I work with the teachers, language learners and human raters.

Expertise: computer-assisted language testing, educational technology, language assessment, foreign languages, language teaching

Nhan Phan

Doctoral Candidate

Aalto University

My research focuses on developing practical language learning applications using the latest speech and language technologies. This includes L2 pronunciation practice, self-study speaking tasks and interactive spoken dialogues.

Expertise: automatic speech recognition, computer-assisted language learning

Riikka Ullakonoja

Post Doctoral Researcher

University of Jyväskylä

My role in the project is development and assessment of speaking tasks.

Ilona Lähteenmäki

Research assistant

University of Helsinki

My role in the project involves assisting with data analysis and reporting, as well as administrative and publishing-related tasks.

Minka Lindroos

Project planner (until 1.12.2025)

University of Helsinki

My tasks include project coordination, document preparation, assisting in the data collection, organising seminars and infosessions, and maintaining contacts with all participants.