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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.

2012 SPARC Recipients

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