Researchers

Within our department, there are a number of research projects currently ongoing. Below is a list of our faculty and a brief summary of their current research interests.

Click on the name of the faculty person to open their profile:

Nan Bernstein Ratner, Ed.D., CCC-SLP; Professor and Chairperson
Dr. Ratner's ongoing research includes work on the origins of stuttering in young children, linguistic factors that impact speech fluency, and fluency behaviors of language-impaired children (with Leslie Rescorla of Bryn Mawr College). Current work also includes functional organization of language areas, and linguistic functioning in children with epilepsy (with Dr. William Gaillard).

Sandra Gordon-Salant, Ph.D., CCC-A; Professor
Elderly people experience difficulty understanding speech in poor acoustic environments, even when they are compared to younger listeners with matched hearing sensitivity.  Dr. Gordon-Salant's research focuses on examining factors associated with the aging process that might contribute to the speech perception problems of elderly people, including age-related cognitive change and auditory temporal deficits.

Froma Roth, Ph.D., CCC-SLP; Professor
Dr. Roth's research focuses on language and communication, patterns of learning, students with disabilities, and assessment of young children.

Rochelle Newman, Ph.D.; Associate Professor
Dr. Newman's ongoing research includes work on how infants are able to learn & understand language in noisy environments, and how adult listeners cope with variability in the speech signal. She is also working with Dr. Diane German to examine the lexicons of children with word-finding difficulties.

Monita Chatterjee , Ph.D.; Assistant Professor
Dr. Chatterjee's research focuses on auditory perception in persons with cochlear implants.

Yasmeen Faroqi Shah, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor
Dr. Shah's research focuses on aphasia (language breakdown and recovery after brain damage), neurolinguistics (neuroimaging of syntactic and morphological processing), and bilingualism (language processing in normal and aphasic individuals).

Tracy Fitzgerald, Ph.D., CCC-A; Assistant Professor
Dr. Fitzgerald's research interests include physiological measures of auditory function, basic and clinical applications, and identification of hearing loss in infants and children.  Current research focuses on otoacoustic emissions in both normal and hearing-impaired individuals.

Wei Tian, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Dr. Tian's research focuses on speech physiology using MRI and ultrasonography, vocal fold vibration patterns in vocal pathology, and velopharyngeal physiology using endoscopy and acoustic analysis.

Barbara Sonies, Ph.D., Research Professor
Dr. Sonies' research focuses on dysphagia (swallowing disorders), aging, oral motor function and neurological and neuromotor impairments.

Grace H. Yeni-Komshian, Ph.D.; Professor Emerita
Dr. Yeni-Komshian's research focuses on bilingualism. A major question of investigation is the effect of the age at which bilingual individuals acquire their second language on their proficiency in both of their languages.

Adjunct Researchers

Our adjunct faculty members also have strong research programs and often serve as faculty advisors for students in our program wishing to gain experience in these areas of research.

Carmen Brewer, Ph.D., CCC-A
Diagnosis and identification of auditory disorders; genetic aspects of auditory function; otoacoustic emissions

David Chandler, Ph.D., ABA, CCC-A
Psychoacoustics:  binaural spatial resolution, situational awareness; blast injury to the ear; otoacoustic emissions for early identification of noise-induced effects in the cochlea

Dennis Drayna, Ph.D.
Genetic bases of communicative disorders such as stuttering

Peter Fitzgibbons, Ph.D.
Hearing loss and aging; auditory temporal processing

William Gaillard, M.D.
Linguistic functioning in children with epilepsy (with Dr. Nan Berstein Ratner).

Christy Ludlow, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Functional organization and control of laryngeal function in voice, speech and swallowing; pathogenesis of idiopathic voice and speech disorders

Renetta Tull, Ph.D.
Improving assistive technology, such as speech recognition devices