Dear alumni and friends of UW-Madison’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders,
We are excited to share the department’s announcements with you as we embark on this next academic year.
First, the Department would like to institute the Distinguished Alum Award, to honor and recognize members of our extensive community of alumni who contribute to the advances in the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders. If you would like to self-nominate or nominate someone for this award, please email me at kaushanskaya@wisc.edu.
We updated our strategic plan to emphasize the department’s continuous dedication to supporting our students, delivering state-of-the-art curriculum, and capitalizing on our world-class research enterprise to drive innovations. Across all strategic goals, we embrace the Wisconsin Idea, and re-commit to sharing our advances with the broader community of Wisconsin and beyond.
Six Assistant Professors have joined the Department since 2022. Their research expands our understanding of speech, language, and hearing, spans two buildings (the Goodnight Hall and the Waisman Center) and is already making an impact on our communities.
Our graduate programs rose in rankings, and in 2024, the U.S. News and World Report ranked our Speech-Language Pathology 2nd and our AuD Consortium program 16th best program in the country.
In 2025, we will begin offering a revised Master’s curriculum in our Speech and Language Pathology program. This revised curriculum aligns with the expanded scope of practice for Speech Language Pathologists and came about as the result of feedback from our alums.
Our Speech and Hearing Clinic continues to provide accessible, culturally responsive, and evidence-based services to the members of our community, and to train clinicians who will become leaders in the fields of Speech and Language Pathology and Audiology.
The stories in this newsletter highlight student achievements, research advancements, and public and community service contributions over the past year. They represent only a fraction of what we have accomplished together, and I am certain that the upcoming 2024/2025 year will see even more progress in our educational mission, our research, and our outreach. On, Wisconsin!
|
|
|
|
Margarita Kaushanskaya, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
|
|
|
|
|
UW-Madison CS&D Department’s ASHA Reception will be held on Friday, 12/6, at 8:30 PM in room 607 of Hyatt Regency Seattle (808 Howell Street, Seattle, WA 98101). Come join us and visit presentations by our faculty and students!
|
|
|
|
The Communication Sciences and Disorders (CS&D) program at UW-Madison remains a leading graduate program in the United States, excelling in both speech-language pathology and audiology. This past year, U.S. News & World Report recognized the program's excellence by awarding it top rankings in these fields.
|
|
|
|
We are delighted to celebrate our esteemed faculty members for their awards in 2024! Each year, their unwavering commitment and exceptional accomplishments are recognized through various prestigious honors. We take great pride in their continued success and the significant impact they have on our department and the broader field of communication sciences and disorders.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dr.
Vinney is a proud alumna of UW-Madison's CS&D masters (MS) in speech-language pathology (SLP) and PhD programs. With the training she received at UW-Madison, Lisa has had the opportunity to work in varied roles including academic and voice-specialized clinical positions. After graduating from the MS SLP program in 2006, Lisa served as a clinical fellow at the University of Pittsburgh Voice Center. She returned to UW in 2007 to pursue her PhD in voice and voice disorders under the direction of Dr. Nadine Connor and Dr. Lyn Turkstra. Following the completion of her doctoral work in 2013, Lisa served as an assistant, then associate professor and associate chair in the CS&D department at Illinois State University before returning to Madison in 2021. She provided full-time specialized voice and airway assessment and treatment services at the UW Health Voice and Swallowing Clinic
until starting her position as MS SLP program director and teaching faculty within UW CS&D in 2023. In her new role, Lisa enjoys advising students through their own academic journey, working with faculty to support the department in a variety of ways, and teaching undergraduate and graduate students across several CS&D classes. Lisa is delighted to return to the program that shaped her as a student, instructor, scholar, and clinician.
|
|
|
|
Maryann N. Krasko, MS has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (F31) Grant from the National Institutes of Health for her research under the mentorship of Michelle Ciucci, PhD, CCC-SLP. Her project examines how vocal function and certain brainstem areas are affected in the earliest stages of Parkinson disease using a genetic rat model. Krasko hopes her work will lead to better methods for diagnosing and treating communication disorders in Parkinson disease, ultimately improving
patients' quality of life. Last year she also won two prestigious awards: The American Speech Language Hearing Foundation’s New Century Scholars Doctoral Scholarship and The Dysphagia Research Society’s New Investigator Award. Congratulations, Maryann!
|
|
|
|
negative swallowing outcomes . The long-term goal of this work is understand the biological basis of swallow-based interventions and translate such findings to clinical research to improve care for patients with head and neck cancer. Recently, Nicole presented at the American Speech Language and Hearing Association Annual Convention in Boston, MA, where she gave a talk detailing a study focused on how age impacts swallowing in Veterans diagnosed with head and
neck cancer – she was awarded the American Board of Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders Excellence in Clinical Research Recognition for Adult Dysphagia Research.
|
|
|
|
|
Hayley Olson (PhD student) presented her work at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2024 in Philadelphia, PA! Her project focused on the relationship between right and left hemisphere regional tau and proper name recall in individuals at risk for Alzheimer’s disease!
|
|
|
|
Madeline Hale published her first paper in Neurobiology of Aging entitled, “Associations between recall of proper names in story recall and CSF amyloid and tau in adults without cognitive impairment” (Hale etal., 2024). Madeline Hale presented at the Dementia & Tech PIA at the Alzheimer’s Association International
Conference 2023 in Amsterdam, showing measures from connected speech associated with amyloid and
tau.
|
|
|
|
Madeline Hale presented at the Dementia & Tech PIA at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2023 in Amsterdam, showing measures from connected speech associated with amyloid and tau.
|
|
|
|
Jenn Soriano, a doctoral student in Katie Hustad’s WISC Lab, was awarded a 2024 doctoral scholarship from the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CAPCSD) for her dissertation titled Characterizing the impact of bilingualism on perception of the speech of children and adolescents with dysarthria. Each CAPCSD member institution is allowed to nominate one student for this prestigious award; 10 scholarships are awarded, nationwide. Jenn was UW-Madison’s nominee and is highly deserving of this honor. Congratulations Jenn!
|
|
|
|
Showcasing Student Achievements at National and International Conferences
|
|
|
|
Our faculty and students continue to push the boundaries of knowledge and practice in the field of speech-language pathology and audiology. This year, their dedication and expertise have led to an impressive array of presentations. These accomplishments reflect the continuous hard work, innovative research, and unwavering commitment to advancing the field. We take immense pride in their achievements and look forward to their future contributions to the profession. Check out the sampling of the 2023 ASHA convention presentations and more below!
|
|
|
|
|
Jennifer Soriano, Tristan Mahr, & Katherine Hustad poster presentation at the Biennial Conference on Speech Motor Control: "Characterizing Listener Fatigue When Listening to Speech of Children With Cerebral Palsy"
|
|
Dhatri S. Devaraju, Santosh M., Ajith Kumar U., & G. Nike Gnanateja poster presentation: "Auditory Encoding of Steady and Dynamically Changing Virtual Pitch in Adults who Stutter"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jenn Soriano and Katie Hustad 2023 ASHA poster presentation: "Intelligibility in Context Scale Rating: How Well Do They Relate"
|
|
Courtney Seidel, UW alum Kelsey Reis, and students Zalaire Fellows and Ellie Engeldinger poster presentation at the 2023 ASHA Convention "Equity in Education: Implementing Age Appropriate Literacy-Based
Intervention With Complex Communicators While Streamlining Planning"
|
|
Megan Hernandez & Janani Sampath poster presentation: "Neural Processing of Enhanced Speech"
|
|
|
|
Undergraduate Hilldale Research Awards
|
|
|
|
Congratulations to our undergraduate students receiving 2024-2025 Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship awards. Generous grants from the Hilldale Foundation and the Wisconsin State Legislature provide for awards of $3,000 each to undergraduate students and $1,000 to their faulty advisors to work in collaboration on research projects.
|
|
|
|
Evenlyn Anton
Mentor: Margarita Kaushanskaya, Ph.D.
Project: Learning Words in Two Dialects
|
Veronica Goveas
Mentor: Michelle Ciucci, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Project: Exercise and Neurotrophic Factors in Brain, Tongue, and Larynx in the Pink1-/- Rat Model of Parkinson Disease
|
|
|
|
Kerry Lannon
Mentor: Carrie Niziolek, Ph.D.
Project: Increasing speech intelligibility in Parkinson’s disease by inducing vowel space expansion in response to altered auditory feedback
|
Bailey Finch
Mentor: Audra Sterling, Ph.D.
Project: Gesture and Nonverbal Communication in Females with Fragile X Syndrome
|
|
|
|
Hannah Wahl
Mentor: Margarita Kaushanskaya, Ph.D.
Project: The Effect of Bilingual Parental Input on Novel Word Learning
|
|
|
|
Congratulations to the following 2024 grant recipients! These prestigious grants will fund pioneering research and innovative initiatives in communication sciences and disorders. We eagerly anticipate the transformative impact of their work on our department and the field at large.
|
|
|
|
|
UW Speech and Hearing Clinic Concussion Services
|
|
|
|
Clinical associate professor Kimberly Caul and spring 2024 graduates Kelsey Kopiske, Cassidy Bertagnoli, Brenna Hevrdejs and Lizzy Balsiger were accepted for a poster presentation titled Concussion Care: Program Development and Implementing Best Practices in the University Clinic that they will create and present at the 2024 ASHA Convention in Seattle in December.
Learn more about the UW Speech and Hearing Clinic Concussion services here!
|
|
|
|
AAC Storytime
This summer the UW Speech & Hearing Clinic held its 2nd annual Bilingual AAC Story Time.
Children between the ages of 4 and 7 who spoke English and/or Spanish participated in weekly
group sessions focused on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) use and literacy
enrichment.
|
|
Watch Me Grow Program
The Watch Me Grow program supports children from birth to age 4 and their families, offering individual and group interventions to improve communication, social interaction, play, and feeding skills. It addresses various diagnoses such as speech and language delays, prematurity, autism, and more. Led by clinical professors Kathryn Basco and Liz Delsandro, the program tailors play-based services to each family's needs and routines.
For more information, contact Kathryn Basco (kbasco@wisc.edu) or Liz Delsandro (delsandro@wisc.edu).
|
|
|
|
Empowering Lives: The Impact of the UW-Madison Hearing Aid Recycling Program
The UW Speech and Hearing Clinic’s Hearing Aid Recycling Program (HARP) recently reached an exciting milestone: The HARP now serves over one hundred people in Dane County! The HARP’s mission is to make hearing healthcare accessible to all, providing free care to individuals who cannot afford it due to lack of insurance or financial need.
Check out HARP services here!
|
|
|
|
New Equipment in the Audiology Clinic
The Doctor of Audiology program now has advanced Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) equipment, enhancing clinical training and academics. This technology helps students in electrophysiology courses and clinic develop essential auditory assessment skills, including ABR testing and other electrophysiological measures like middle and long latency potentials.
Photo description: 2nd-year AuD student Adriana Castillo practicing ABR testing on instructor Dr. Amy Kroll.
|
|
|
|
Signposts for Success: UW Graduate Clinicians Guide Middle Schoolers Through Language Skills Journey
This summer, graduate student clinicians at the UW Speech and Hearing Clinic used the Notice and Note program to help middle schoolers strengthen their language skills. The program's six "signposts" guide students to read closely, analyze texts, and support their interpretations.
Pictured: Graduate student clinicians and their students exploring Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick.
|
|
|
|
Exciting renovations in Goodnight Hall
|
|
|
|
The
department is working to renovate a space (photographed below) in the basement of Goodnight Hall to create the Translational Auditory Science Core (TASC) Facility. This state-of-art facility will be shared by scientists and clinicians at the University who are interested in human auditory perception and the application of hearing science to clinical practice and outcomes. The centerpiece of TASC is a large sound booth that will house a ring of many speakers that can create virtual sound environments that sound just like the noisy places people experience in daily life. The booth will be able to fit more than one person, so researchers can study how people communicate with each other in noisy environments. In the TASC, researchers can collect data about the brain activity of people having conversations as well as study how they change their communication behavior in different
environments. Researchers hope to use this space to conduct experiments that will change our basic understanding of real-world communication and improve interventions and technologies used by people with hearing loss, like hearing aids and cochlear implants. The TASC will also serve as a teaching and clinical training space to teach students about calibration, hearing science, electrophysiology, and auditory rehabilitation.
|
|
|
|
From left to right: Carlos Benítez-Barrera, Ph.D., Erik Jorgensen, Au.D., Ph.D., Bobby Gibbs, Ph.D., G. Nike Gnanateja, Ph.D.
|
|
|
|
|
Goodnight Hall, the home of UW-Madison's Communication Sciences and Disorders department, has recently undergone a series of exciting renovations. Check out the photos below to see our latest updates!
|
|
|
|
OUTREACH & INVOLVEMENT PROJECTS
|
|
|
|
National Student Speech Language Hearing Association
|
|
|
|
The
UW-Madison CS&D’s Chapter of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA) is active and engaged in DEI initiatives. In 2021, NSSLHA established the Wisconsin Idea Task Force (WITF) to carry out the three main pillars of diversity, engagement, and inclusion. The task force’s mission is to expand and diversify representation within the professions of CS&D by providing engaging educational opportunities for middle school and high school students from underrepresented populations. Each year the task force increases awareness of CS&D-related careers by organizing interactive community and school presentations, raising funds to support at least one high school student paid internship in a CS&D research lab, and organizing a summer on-campus CS&D field trip for middle and high school students. Thank you to our community partner, the Boys and Girls
Club of Dane County, for helping to make all of this happen work! Last year (2023-24), NSSLHA's WITF members visited 10 schools in the Madison area. During these visits, they gave 27 presentations on the fields of CS&D to approximately 665 students.
|
|
|
|
On July 25, NSSLHA undergraduates hosted a CS&D Career Exploration Field Trip here on campus (50+ students from the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, 7th -10th graders). These students ate lunch at the Dejope dining hall, learned about the fields of CS&D and Sofi’s internship experience, participated in creative activities related to speech, language, and hearing, and finished with ice cream near the lake!
|
|
|
|
The CS&D Department and WITF greatly appreciate your generous support—every donation makes a difference!
|
|
|
|
This year's CS&D summer intern was Sophia Diaz-Gutierrez (she/her), a recent graduate of West High School. Sofi worked with the CS&D department for 5 weeks (Mon-Thurs, June 24-July 25). Monday- Wednesday, Sofi worked with Dr. Ben Parrell and Chris Naber in the Speech Motor Action + Control Lab (thank you!). Thursdays were dedicated to clinical shadowing, lab visits, resume building, and planning the CS&D ON-CAMPUS FIELD TRIP (TH, JULY 25). Thank you to our clinical faculty and labs for hosting these educational experiences!
|
|
|
|
UTEP Students Join UW-Madison CS&D
|
|
|
|
|
UTEP crew after their final presentation at Goodnight Hall, left to right: Dr. Amelia Rau (Professor at UTEP and chaperone), Stephanie Gómez, Paola Gallegos, Krystal Gámez, Mario Sánchez, César Rodarte, Carlos Benítez-Barrera (Assistant Professor at UW-Madison and program coordinator).
|
|
|
|
The second cohort of master’s students in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) joined the UW-Madison CS&D Department for a three-week intensive research experience. This visit, part of our Partnership Program in Graduate Excellence (PPGE) grant from the UW-Madison Graduate School, aimed to strengthen and build new relationships with Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), such as UTEP. The initiative seeks to increase the enrollment of exceptional Ph.D. students from underrepresented backgrounds by fostering research collaborations, faculty professional development, and the creation of collaborative activities and exchange programs for faculty, staff, and students.
During their stay, the UTEP students engaged in hands-on research in various CS&D laboratories and participated in research and professional development seminars led by Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty members. The department also organized a series of leisure activities to enrich their experience, including enjoying Madison amenities (e.g., the farmers market), attending a Brewers game in Milwaukee, and sightseeing in Chicago. Their visit concluded with a presentation describing their learning experiences in our department (pictured below). The UTEP students described their experience as "memorable," emphasizing how the experience had both broadened their academic perspectives and strengthened their commitment to research.
|
|
|
|
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, & INCLUSION
|
|
|
|
CS&D
2nd year Graduate students Hema Nair, Mariana Ibanez-Baldor, and Rina Nikolic attended a 3-day event put together by The Discussion Project on August 19, 20, & 21. The aim of this professional development series is to strengthen our campus-wide capacity to create welcoming, engaging, and academically rigorous classroom environments in which students experience productive classroom discussions on important issues and topics. The students learned and talked about protocols they can use to help facilitate the student-led DEIAB discussions with their fellow peers, tips for approaching difficult conversations with other students, crafting questions that foster discussion, and carrying out meaningful and equitable discussions. They also designed, implemented, and reflected on plans for discussion meetings for the Fall semester.
|
|
|
|
WANT TO BE IN THE NEXT NEWSLETTER?
|
|
|
|
We’d love to hear from our alums! Share your career updates, publications, awards, and more by filling out our newsletter submission form below. You could be featured in an upcoming Alumni Spotlight!
|
|
|
|
Check out our website at
https://csd.wisc.edu/
|
|
|
|
|