Perhaps the most defining characteristic of our species is the complexity of speech to communicate meaning. Through muscular control of a relatively small portion of the body (the vocal tract), a speaker is able to modify the vibration of air molecules as a vessel for transmitting a mental concept to a listener. My research involves using a wide variety of state-of-the-art technologies (real-time MRI, ultrasound tongue imaging, electromagnetic articulometry, nasalance, laryngography) to investigate how speakers coordinate vocal tract articulators to produce speech sounds, how this shaping of the vocal tract affects the acoustic output, and how these acoustic changes are perceived by listeners. Knowledge of these aspects of speech production and perception can help explain sound patterns that we observe as languages evolve over time, predict future language evolution, and teach us about the physical and cognitive characteristics of our shared capacity for human language.