This special volume celebrates Sheila Blumstein’s many and sustained contribu- tions to our understanding of language, and in particular, phonological process- ing. Professor Blumstein has devoted her career to understanding how speech is produced, perceived, and represented in the brain. Working with the legendary Roman Jakobson at Harvard University, she obtained her doctorate in Linguis- tics in 1970 with a ground-breaking dissertation that investigated the phonology of speech patterns in aphasic patients. This work was based on observations of sound substitutions and errors in patient interviews. Published as a book by Mouton in 1973, A Phonological Investigation of Aphasic Speech clearly indicated the focus of her research: the representation of speech and language in the brain.