Students Preparing for Academic and Research Careers (SPARC) Award Recipients
The SPARC Award is offered as part of ASHA's Strategic Objective to Increase Research Commitment. The goal of SPARC is to foster students' interest in the pursuit of PhD education and careers in academia in order to fill faculty/researcher vacancies in communication sciences and disorders (CSD). It allows students to prepare for successful PhD education and exciting careers in research and teaching. The SPARC Award gives students an opportunity to participate in teaching and research with guidance from a mentor and travel to enhance teaching and research exposure.
2013 SPARC Recipients
Kenia De Los Santos, Iona College
Primary Mentor: Alison Behrman
Teaching Activity: Draft questions for anatomy and physiology midterm exam and grade exams
Research Interest: The Perception of Spanish Accent in Reading and Spontaneous Speech
Michelle Erskine, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Primary Mentor: Jan Edwards
Teaching Activity: Develop a lecture on the development of phonological awareness and create a homework exercises
Research Interest: Compare explicit and implicit measures of phonological awareness
Laura Friedman, University of Maryland, College Park
Primary Mentor: Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah
Teaching Activity: Plan a lecture and attend faculty meetings
Research Interest: Phoneme encoding as a verb deficit source in persons with aphasia
Diondra Maestas, University of New Mexico
Primary Mentor: Phyllis Palmer
Teaching Activity: Serve as a teaching assistant for Introductions to Communication Disorders
Research Interest: Swallowing disorders in patients with oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD)
Cornetta Mosley, University of Washington
Primary Mentor: Jessica Sullivan
Teaching Activity: Serve as teaching assistant for a speech & hearing sciences course, attend University of Washington Teaching and Learning Symposium
Research Interest: Speech perception in noise tests that correlate with hearing aid users’ subjective outcomes
Callie Muri, University of Texas, Dallas
Primary Mentor: Raúl Rojas
Teaching Activity: Guest lecture in the bilingual language course on eliciting and analyzing bilingual narrative language samples.
Research Interest: Eye-tracking/narrative retell analysis pilot study in ELL
Jillian Nyswonger, East Carolina University
Primary Mentor: Jamie Perry
Teaching Activity: Serve as a teaching assistant and conduct integrated laboratory sessions
Research Interest: Examine muscle morphology and speech characteristics in cleft palate and associated syndromes
Jamie Ragsdale, University of New Mexico
Primary Mentor: Cathy Binger
Teaching Activity: Prepare course materials and guest lecture and attend university’s Office of Support for Effective Teaching
Research Interest: Language Sampling Measures for Children with Highly Unintelligible Speech|
Kristin VanWyngaarden, University of Nebraska, Omaha
Primary Mentor: Shari DeVeney
Teaching Activity: Prepare a course on evidence based practice, develop a grading rubric
Research Activity: Explore phonological profiles of two-year-olds with expressive-only and expressive-receptive language delay
Caitlin Ryan, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Primary Mentor: Lyn Turkstra
Teaching Activity: Develop a syllabus, learner outcomes, lectures for a graduate course, and procedures for assessing student knowledge
Research Interest: Emotion recognition in context to social communication skills in TBI.
Previous SPARC Recipients
2012
Erin Archibald, Northeastern University
Primary Mentor: Rupal Patel
Teaching Activity: Assist with course materials, draft test question and implement video tutorials on acoustic analysis
Research Interest: Prososdic control in congenital dysarthria
Susan Baughman, University of Maryland–College Park
Primary Mentor: Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah
Teaching Activity: Participate in syllabus development, develop homework assignments and grading rubric, plan and conduct hands on brain anatomy lab
Research Interest: Executive functions in monolingual and bilingual persons with aphasia
(PWA)
Devon Brunson, University of Maryland
Primary Mentor: Rochelle Newman
Teaching Activity: Create lectures, exam questions and homework for psycholinguistics class; mentor high school students interested in research lab experience
Research Interest: Maternal use of language and language outcomes in children
Caitlin Cummings, The Ohio State University
Primary Mentor: Rebecca McCauley
Teaching Activity: Guest lecture and lead a presentation 22qDS deletion syndrome
Research Interest: Prosodic variation on velopharyngeal function in children with
22q11.2 deletion syndrome
Kevin Cunningham, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
Primary Mentor: Katarina Haley
Teaching Activity: Develop online case study modules for Adult Communication Disorders class
Research Interest: Distortion errors in apraxia of speech (AOS)
Maria Josefina Fernandez, George Washington University
Primary Mentor: Cynthia Core
Teaching Activity: Lead a two-part lecture on bilingual issues in language development and assessment
Research Interest: Phonetic qualities of non-native English parents (from native Spanish-speaking parents) communicating with bilingual children
Carrie Anderson Kenny, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Primary Mentor: Karen Hux
Teaching Activity: Participate in course on teaching techniques for college level students
Research Interest: Semantic categorization skills in TBI and its impact on AAC design
Tristan Mahr, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Primary Mentor: Jan Edwards
Teaching Activity: Develop a lecture on prosody supported with online exercises
Research Interest: Speech-sound discrimination in children with autism spectrum disorders
Megan McKenna, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Primary Mentor: Pamela Hadley
Teaching Activity: Attend workshops at the Center for Teaching Excellence, mentor undergraduates
Research Activity: Developmental expectations for sentence diversity in toddlers
Jessie Shives Patterson, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Primary Mentor: Julie Honaker
Teaching Activity: Develop course materials and guest lecture on clinical decision analysis and EBP
Research Interest: Sports-related concussion and vestibular testing
2011
Shrutee Bhatt, Louisiana State University
Primary Mentor: Annette Hurley, Louisiana State University
Teaching Activity: Prepare lecture for "Unlocking Key to Audiogram," attend seminar on "Teaching by Case Studies"
Research Interest: Effect of contralateral noise on the late auditory evoked potentials in children at-risk for Central Auditory Processing Disorder
Felicidad Garcia, Teachers College–Columbia University
Primary Mentor: Karen Froud, Teachers College–Columbia University
Teaching Activity: Guest lecture graduate course and participate in team mentorship for new lab members
Research Interest: Neural correlates of African American English and standard American English language processing
Christopher Garron, University of Massachusetts–Amherst
Primary Mentor: Sarah Poissant, University of Massachusetts–Amherst
Teaching Activity: Assist with teaching undergraduate course, proctor exams and grade written assignments
Research Interest: Psychoacoustics
Jennifer Lee, Texas State University
Primary Mentor: Alisha Richmond, Texas State University
Teaching Activity: Review current literature on teaching techniques, guest lecture and learn about KASA
Research Interest: Intervention models for Children with autism spectrum disorders
Ryan Millager, Vanderbilt University
Primary Mentor: Edward Conture, Vanderbilt University
Teaching Activity: Participate in Vanderbilt's Future Faculty Preparation Program, Interview tenure track faculty
Research Interest: Attentional regulation and intratest scatter of expressive language in children who stutter
Sarah Panjwani, University of Texas–Austin
Primary Mentor: Li Cheng, University of Texas–Austin
Teaching Activity: Assist with developing lectures for undergraduate and graduate courses
Research Interest: Bilingualism
Chelsea Pettibone, Northeastern University
Primary Mentor: Kevin Reilly, Northeastern University
Teaching Activity: Assist with teaching Neuroscience of communication course, conduct office hours, provide tutoring via online discussion forums using Blackboard
Research Interest: Auditory feedback control for speech using real-time perturbation of vowel formants
Stefanie Rutledge, Indiana University
Primary Mentor: Laura Murray, Indiana University
Teaching Activity: Guest lecture, train research assistants and participate in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) seminars
Research Interest: Reading comprehension in Parkinson's disease
Joseph Smith, University of South Alabama
Primary Mentor: Kellie Evans, University of South Alabama
Teaching Activity: Assist teaching an "Introduction to Communication Disorders" course, develop test questions
Research Interest: Interpretation of verbal and non-verbal courtship rules in males with and without traumatic brain injury
Joanne White, Vanderbilt University
Primary Mentor: Melanie Schuele, Vanderbilt University
Teaching Activity: Assist teaching "Research article analysis" portion of Child Language Course, interview faculty about teaching skills
Research Interest: Speech sound disorders in children
2010
Christopher Bolinger, Texas Tech University
Primary Mentor: James Dembowski, Texas Tech University
Research Interest: Motoric articulation and linguistic deficits in children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Melissa Boone, Marquette University
Primary Mentor: Steven Long, Marquette University
Research Interest: Language development and literacy skills in African American English speaking children and bilingual populations
Stephanie Davidson, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Primary Mentor: Tiffany Hogan, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Research Interest: Neuroimaging and its application to language and reading disorders in children
Lauren Eisenband, Vanderbilt University
Primary Mentor: Melanie Schuele, Vanderbilt University
Research Interest: Elicited language and syntax production in children
Tamika LeRay, Emerson College
Primary Mentor: Belinda Fusté-Herrmann, Emerson College
Research Interest: Clinical competence of SLPs working with children who speak African American English
Andre Lindsey, University of Texas–Austin
Primary Mentor: Joyce Harris, University of Texas–Austin
Research Interest: Recovery processes in acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults
Jaime Moore, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Primary Mentor: Susan Thibeault, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Research Interest: Elastin and treatment of scarred vocal folds
Stacey Rimikis, Queens College–CUNY
Primary Mentor: Lauren Calandruccio, Queens College–CUNY
Research Interest: Effect of competing speech signals on non-native English speakers' ability to recognize English speech in noise
Ryan Sovinski, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Primary Mentor: Jan Edwards, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Research Interest: Final consonant cluster reduction in African American English child-directed and adult-directed speech
Christine Williams, Vanderbilt University
Primary Mentor: Bernard Rousseau, Vanderbilt University
Research Interest: Voice treatment and compliance
Ashley Woodall, University of Texas–Austin
Primary Mentor: Chang Liu, University of Texas–Austin
Research Interest: Speech enhancement—better vowel formant discrimination in noise for people with hearing loss
Samantha Zickefoose, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Primary Mentor: Karen Hux, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Research Interest: Acquired language and cognitive disorders—attention remediation for severe TBI survivors
2009
Katherine Alexander, Northeastern University
Primary Mentor: Rupal Patel, Northeastern University
Gina Capri, University of Oregon
Primary Mentor: Cecilia Kirk, University of Oregon
Page Carriveau, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Primary Mentor: Julie Washington, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Julia Csillag, Teacher's College, Columbia University
Primary Mentor: Karen Froud, Teacher's College, Columbia University
Kathleen Dougherty, Northeastern University
Primary Mentor: Kevin Reilly, Northeastern University
Jessica Eickhoff, University of Washington
Primary Mentor: Stacy Betz, University of Washington
Allison Gish, Louisiana State University
Primary Mentor: Melda Kunduk, Louisiana State University
Nicola Jones, University of South Florida
Primary Mentor: Elaine Silliman, University of South Florida
Tiffany Jones, Florida State University
Primary Mentor: Ramonda Horton-Ikard, Florida State University
Amanda Schramski, Eastern Michigan University
Primary Mentor: Sarah Ginsberg, Eastern Michigan University
2008
Kyle Wilson, Syracuse University
Primary Mentor: Beth A. Prieve, Syracuse University
Catherine McNab, Northeastern University
Primary Mentor: Rupal Patel, Northeastern University
Katherine Michael Belardi, Duquesne University
Primary Mentor: Diane L. Williams, Duquesne University
Sara Robinson, University of Northern Colorado
Primary Mentor: Julie A. Hanks, University of Northern Colorado
Kaylah Lynn Lalonde, Louisiana State University
Primary Mentor: Brittan A. Barker, Louisiana State University
Johanna M. Hassink, Purdue University
Primary Mentor: Oliver Wendt, Purdue University
Anna Lineback, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Primary Mentor: C. Melanie Schuele, Vanderbilt University
Doris Marie Leeper, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Primary Mentor: Julie A. Washington, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Allison Schaser, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Primary Mentor: Nadine P. Connor, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Meghan E. Matthews, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Primary Mentor: Susan Ellis Weismer, University of Wisconsin–Madison
2007
Pamela Campellone, Northeastern University
Primary Mentor: Rupal Patel, Northeastern University
Lauren Candia, University of Texas at Dallas
Primary Mentor: Hanna Ulatowska, University of Texas at Dallas
Julie Carey, University of Arizona
Primary Mentor: Julie Barkmeier-Kraemer, University of Arizona
Beth Friedman, Pennsylvania State University
Primary Mentor: Maya Misra, Pennsylvania State University
Theresa Herbert, University of South Florida
Primary Mentor: Elaine Silliman, University of South Florida
Amanda Hettenhausen, Saint Louis University
Primary Mentor: Travis Threats, Saint Louis University
Mara Kapsner, University of Washington
Primary Mentor: Tanya Eadie, University of Washington
Kelley Kendrick, Vanderbilt University
Primary Mentor: C. Melanie Schuele, Vanderbilt University
Kelly Morgan, University of Washington
Primary Mentor: Kristie Spencer, University of Washington
Melissa Randazzo, Teacher's College, Columbia University
Primary Mentor: Karen Froud, Teacher's College, Columbia University
Heather Steffy, Eastern Michigan University
Primary Mentor: Lizbeth Stevens, Eastern Michigan University
Krystal Werfel, Vanderbilt University
Primary Mentor: C. Melanie Schuele, Vanderbilt University
2006
Aaron Johnson, Rush University
Mentor: Gail Kempster, Rush University
Andrea Boh, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire
Mentor: Linda Carpenter, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire
Cory Portnuff, University of Colorado at Boulder
Mentor: Kathryn Arehart, University of Colorado at Boulder
Carolyn Potts, Eastern Michigan University
Mentor: Sara Ginsberg, Eastern Michigan University
Anna Clark, University of Colorado at Boulder
Mentor: Donald Finan, University of Colorado at Boulder
Heather Frost, Case Western Reserve University
Mentor: Stacey Williams, Case Western Reserve University
Christina Kuo, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Mentor: Gary Weismer, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Nicole Beck, Hofstra University
Mentor: Ronald Bloom, Hofstra University
Meredith Oakey, Vanderbilt University
Mentor: Ralph Ohde, Vanderbilt University
2005
Alyson Abel, Vanderbilt University
Mentor: Clare Melanie Schuele, Vanderbilt University
Meghan Burchfield, University of Tennessee
Mentor: Maria L Munoz, University of Tennessee
Meghan Darling, Purdue University
Mentor: Jessica Huber, Purdue University
Teresa Domrzalski, California State University–Sacramento
Mentor: Laureen O'Hanlon, California State University–Sacramento
Theresa Gugger, University of Buffalo
Mentor: Geralyn Timler, University at Buffalo
Susan Hickey, University of South Alabama
Mentor: Robert Moore, University of South Alabama
Corinne Juhasz, University of Connecticut
Mentor: Bernard Grela, University of Connecticut
Tricia Kostner, Rush University
Mentor: Richard Peach, Rush University Medical Center
Angelique Lapeyre, Loyola College in Maryland
Mentor: Marie Keirns, Loyola College in Maryland
Sarah Sheridan, New York University
Mentor: Alison Behrman, New York University
Jenna Silver, University of Florida
Mentor: James Harnsberger, University of Florida
Anne Stilwell, University of Oregon
Mentor: McKay Moore Sohlberg, University of Oregon
Caroline Streppa, Univeristy of Virginia
Mentor: Laura Justice Curry, University of Virginia
2004
Rick Arenas, University of Iowa
Primary Mentor: Patricia M. Zebrowski
Karen Marie Barako, Vanderbilt University
Primary Mentor: C. Melanie Schuele
David Bradley Davis, Louisiana State University Health Science Center
Primary Mentor: Robert Turner
Jill Kalat Dolata, University of Texas at Austin
Primary Mentor: Barbara L. Davis
Monique Fees, University of Kansas
Primary Mentor: Steven M. Barlow
Renee Fisher, Hofstra University
Primary Mentor: Ronald L. Bloom
Darlene Foster, University of Maryland–College Park
Primary Mentor: Nan Bernstein Ratner
Daniel E. Hack, Ohio State University
Primary Mentor: Lawrence L. Feth
Laura Hardy, University of Washington
Primary Mentor: Kristie A. Spencer
Suzie Catherine Ip, Pace University–Sara Lawrence College
Primary Mentor: Abbey L. Berg
Erin Jenison, Purdue University
Primary Mentor: Jessica E. Huber
Jennifer Maybee, University of Colorado at Boulder
Primary Mentor: Lorraine Ramig
Erline Vieira Nakano, University of South Florida
Primary Mentor: Jacqueline J. Hinckley
Heather Marie Short, Northern Illinois University
Primary Mentor: Pamela A. Hadley
Anna K. Thurmes, University of Minnesota
Primary Mentor: Karlind T. Moller
Rebecca Joy Traen, Rush University
Primary Mentor: Gail B. Kempster
Julie Martinez Verhoff, University of Texas at Dallas
Primary Mentor: Emily A. Tobey