Julia M. Davis
Retired
Julia M. Davis, professor emerita of the University of Minnesota, is an internationally respected researcher in the area of rehabilitative audiology, an influential teacher and mentor, and an innovative administrator who still serves as an important role model for—especially—young women in the professions. Charles V. Anderson, associate professor emeritus of the University of Iowa, referring to the latter accomplishment, remembers one of Davis's former students who told him that "All I wanted to do was grow up to be Julia Davis."
Davis (BA Northwestern State College; MS and PhD, University of Southern Mississippi) began her distinguished career in 1966 at the University of Southern Mississippi in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences. She then moved to the University of Iowa where she advanced quickly up the academic and administrative ranks from director of the Speech and Hearing Clinic and chair of the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology to associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts. Two years after she assumed that position, she became professor and dean in the College of Behavioral Sciences and then associate provost at the University of South Florida. She retired in 1997 from the University of Minnesota, where she served as dean in the College of Liberal Arts for six years, until 1996.
Davis's pioneering contributions in clinical research, particularly in aural habilitation/rehabilitation, brought this area to prominence. Her extensive body of work has shaped the field. Noel D. Matkin, professor emeritus of the University of Arizona, cites Davis's 1977 publication, Our Forgotten Children: Hard of Hearing Pupils in the Schools, to be of major significance. "I can think of no other single publication in that era that had greater national influence on the audiologic management of hearing impaired youngsters in educational settings," he said. Davis's work that followed clearly described the characteristics of children with hearing impairments and the perception of them by school personnel. "As a consequence," added Matkin, "the importance of early identification, assessment, and management of such children was heightened significantly throughout the country." The visibility Davis brought to the field led to an expanded scope of practice for audiology and increased employment opportunities for school-based audiologists.
Apart from her scholarship—including the seminal Rehabilitative Audiology for Children and Adults (1981; coauthored with Edward Hardick)—Davis is a gifted public speaker and a visionary administrator whose legacy continues at each institution she has transformed. Davis, an ASHA Fellow, and a Fellow as well as Honoree of the Iowa Speech-Language-Hearing Association, also has an impressive history of service to the professions. Among other contributions, for ASHA she has been a Legislative Councilor, a member of the Professional Services Board and the Educational Standards Board, and chair of the Subcommittee on Habilitative Audiology and the Council of Academic Affairs. She has also served as president of the Academy of Rehabilitative Audiology and vice president for Programs and Awards of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation, in which capacity she has been—and is still—actively involved in planning and executing the New Century Scholars and Research awards. She was associate editor of the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research and the Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders.
"Dr. Davis enhanced—and changed the course—of the professions and of higher education during her career," said Charles E. Speaks, Morse-Alumni Distinguished Professor at the University of Minnesota. "Her leadership roles within the professions and the academy, coupled with her personal integrity," he added, have honored the professions and the Association throughout her career. It is in recognition of these accomplishments that a new facility at the University of Minnesota was named the Julia M. Davis Speech-Language-Hearing Center—a fitting tribute to one who exemplifies the best of the professions.
Roger J. Ingham
University of California - Santa Barbara, Dept. of Speech & Hearing Sciences
Roger J. Ingham, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has created a body of work, according to Gerald M. Siegel, professor emeritus of the University of Minnesota, that reveals "an encyclopedic knowledge of all aspects of stuttering, from its early history to the most cutting-edge work in brain imaging." His contributions, added Siegel, go well beyond the field of stuttering: "He has raised fundamental issues about clinical practice and research that are relevant to all aspects of our field. In his research he also demonstrates a passion for new knowledge across academic and intellectual boundaries in a way that is reminiscent of the pioneers in our field."
Immediately after completing his doctorate and spending a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Minnesota, Hollins College, and the University of London, in 1972 Ingham (BS and PhD, University of New South Wales, Australia) became research director of the Communication Disorders Laboratories at the University of New South Wales and then, in 1973, Head at the School of Communication Disorders, Cumberland College of Health Sciences in New South Wales. In 1982 he was awarded the Australian Medal for his contributions to education and research in communication disorders. In 1984, he began his American career as professor and chair in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he currently teaches and pursues research.
Ingham, whose academic degrees are in psychology, began his groundbreaking work in the late 1960s in the application of behavioral principles to the treatment of stuttering in adults. He was also among the first to incorporate prolonged speech into treatment for adults who stutter. Prolonged speech and its variations—which are referred to as "fluency-shaping approaches" in contrast to traditional "stuttering modification" approaches—are now part of the accepted clinical arsenal in the area of fluency disorders, thanks in great part to Ingham's efforts.
His work also continues in developing ways to maintain treatment gains and in demonstrating that speech naturalness—often not achieved in prolonged speech treatment—can be improved when it is made the focus of simple feedback and other clinical activities. In addition to his clinical research, Ingham also conducts important basic research about stuttering—his work on reliable measurement systems that can be used to track clients' progress is one such example. His publication record in all his areas of interest is extensive, his work appearing in every major journal in the field, and his 1984 book, Stuttering and Behavior Therapy, says David Prins, professor emeritus of the University of Washington, is still "the most authoritative review and analysis of treatment in the modern era." More recently, in collaboration with his wife Janis and Peter Fox, he conducted groundbreaking research in brain imaging and stuttering that earned him the 2005 Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research Editors' award in the area of Speech.
Ingham, an ASHA Fellow, has been associate editor of the Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, a member of ASHA's Publications Board, and a valued editorial consultant and reviewer for numerous publications. He has also been a guest editor for Seminars in Speech and Language and the Journal of Fluency Disorders, and a recipient of many awards and honors. He has directed a large number of master's theses and doctoral dissertations of students who have since gone on to make their own impressive contributions to stuttering treatment and research—Mark Onslow, Ann Packman, Jack James, Anne Bothe, and Patrick Finn are now familiar names.
All of which is why, says David Prins, "Roger Ingham is a towering presence in our discipline" and a figure of "prodigious energy." He adds, "Were you to ask me to name the first three persons who come to mind in response to the words, 'stuttering-treatment and brain function,' I would respond 'Roger Ingham'...three times."
Christy Ludlow
National Institute of Health, Laryngeal & Speech Section
Christy Ludlow, chief of the Laryngeal and Speech Section, Medical Neurology Branch, Clinical Neuroscience Program, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health, is a speech and voice scientist whom colleagues around the world "are proud to call a leader with courage and vision," says Ingo R. Titze of the University of Iowa. He adds that "She speaks her mind, adheres to truth and fact rather than politics, and is a person who maintains a genuine interest in the progress of science and scientists. I applaud her."
A native of Montreal, Canada, Ludlow (BSc and MSc Applied, McGill University; PhD, New York University) began her career as a visiting professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland and project manager at ASHA. She then joined NIH in 1974 as a speech-language pathologist, advancing through the ranks to her current position. From 1974 to the present she also worked as a consultant to the Vietnam Head Injury Study at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (1980–1987), was a visiting professor at the University of Tokushima in Japan, and was and continues to be on the adjunct faculty at Howard University, the University of Maryland, and Georgetown University Medical School.
In all of her positions, Ludlow brought national recognition to the importance of speech/communication assessment and treatment strategies for people with spasmodic dysphonia and other neurologically based voice disorders. Her research has emphasized neurophysiological, neuromuscular, behavioral, modeling, and brain imaging approaches. She has shared her work through numerous scientific articles, and over her 30-year career has presented at scientific meetings, seminars, and in-services to colleagues and consumers both nationally and internationally. "Her scholarship represents a depth of coverage," says Edward G. Conture of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, "an appropriate amalgam of neurology, pharmacology, speech science, and cutting-edge technology. Ludlow's scholarly achievements have contributed, across a swath of issues in communication science and disorders, to a furtherance of our basic knowledge and treatment of speech, voice, and language problems."
Ludlow's work has been widely praised: She is a Fellow of ASHA and the American Laryngological Association, has received the Honors of the Maryland Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and is also the recipient of the NIH Director's Award and the Editors' Award of the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research for the best scientific article in speech for 1987, among other honors. She has also given greatly of her time and talent to the professions: To ASHA's benefit she has chaired the Scientific Affairs Committee; was a member of the Task Force on Speech, Language, and Hearing Science and the Task Force on Information Services; was a member of the Professional and Scientific Programs Board; and she's coordinated Special Interest Division 3, Voice and Voice Disorders. She has served on numerous NIH committees as well as been involved in many editorial activities. She has served, for example, as associate editor of the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Voice and the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, and is an editorial consultant for virtually every journal in the professions.
In short, says Leslie E. Glaze of the University of Minnesota and current Division 3 coordinator, Ludlow's "longstanding and exemplary contributions to our profession and to the Association have significantly and consistently benefited the profession, including its scientists, clinicians, patients, and interdisciplinary providers in our field."
Gloria Toliver Weddington
San Jose State University, Dept. of Communication Disorders & Sciences
Gloria Toliver Weddington, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences at San Jose State University, "is a strong leader in our profession and a major figure in the areas of multicultural issues in communication disorders, international education in speech and hearing, and the development of clinical training programs. She is a person of extraordinary energy and vision," says Harry N. Seymour of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Weddington (BA, Southern University; MA and PhD, Ohio State University; MBA Pepperdine University) has been at San Jose State University since 1969. As befitting her commitment to the global community, she has also taught at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was a visiting speech-language pathology consultant at the Jeddah Institute for Speech and Hearing in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and visiting professor and consultant at the Medical University of Southern Africa in Pretoria, South Africa.
Weddington's passion for issues of equality and access began with her participation in the peace marches of the '60s when she was a student in Baton Rouge, LA. She went on to become the first speech-language pathologist to complete a doctoral dissertation at Ohio State University on the subject of African American English. Throughout her distinguished career Weddington has recruited and educated diverse SLPs in the United States and worldwide and was responsible for expanding speech-language pathology services to remote regions of the world. She has extended the San Jose graduate program to Saudi Arabia, Guam, and Las Vegas, and the undergraduate program to Guam and Micronesia. Many of her international students have gone on to pursue doctoral work in the United States and plan to return to their native countries to develop the professions. Weddington's efforts have benefited many ethnic groups who are underserved by the professions. Since 1992 she has been awarded seven grants for which she was sole author and four co-authored grants that total over $6 million to educate students.
A member of ASHA for over 35 years, Weddington has served on the Legislative Council, on the Governmental Affairs Committee, Recruitment Committee, and the Committee on the Status of Racial Affairs, for just a few examples of her service to ASHA. She has also been active with the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association (CSHA) on legislative advocacy, minority concerns, recruitment, and served as Commissioner on Research, Publication, and Documents for CSHA. She was also executive director of the National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing. She is a Fellow of ASHA and a recipient of ASHA's Multicultural Award and CSHA's Diversity Award. Weddington also received the Honors of the Santa Clara County Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Weddington's legacy to the professions, according to Charlena Seymour, provost and senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, "is the number of students throughout the world whom she has taught, advised, mentored, supervised, and supported for over 30 years. If there is a student in need, Gloria always has the time to listen; if there is a student in trouble, Gloria has the energy to counsel; if there are students who want to excel, Gloria has the direction to lead them. She is ASHA's everywoman, everywhere, on behalf of the professional work that we do."
Elisabeth H. Wiig
Knowledge Research Institute
Elisabeth H. Wiig, professor emerita, Communication Disorders, Boston University, and president of the Knowledge Research Institute and RAN Diagnostics, Inc., "has exerted a mighty influence on the related fields of speech-language pathology and learning disabilities," says Nicola Wolf Nelson of Western Michigan University. "Dr. Wiig was leading the effort to connect spoken language, cognitive processes, and literacy abilities when many professionals were still thinking of language as no more than 'connected speech.' She is a leader among leaders and a scholar whose work has had deep and widespread influence in making life better for individuals with communication and cognitive disorders."
Wiig (BS, Statsseminariet Emdrupborg, Copenhagen, Denmark; MA, Western Reserve University; MA, University of Bergen, Norway; PhD, Case-Western Reserve University) began her professional career in the United States at the University of Michigan where she was director of the Residential Aphasia Program and a member of the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology. She then moved to Boston University. In 1970 Wiig was assistant professor of Special Education; she became professor in 1979 and professor emerita in 1987. After two years as adjunct professor at Texas Christian University, she became principal of the Wiig Group, vice president of EDUCOM Associates, and is now president of the Knowledge Research Institute.
"The epitome of a clinician's clinician," says Wayne A. Secord of the University of Central Florida, Wiig has devoted her career to the clinical process as an innovator, exciting teacher, and generous mentor. Her first textbook (1976; co-authored with Eleanor M. Semel), Language Disabilities in Children and Adolescents, is a classic that stimulated countless future clinicians and researchers to think differently about the relationship of language and cognition. Her assessment instruments—CELF, TLC, TOWK, WABC (for just a few examples of many)—are used in clinics and schools internationally. The CELF alone and its many derivatives have greatly influenced how clinicians think about language-learning disorders (LLD) and provision of services to preschool and school-age children. She is a gifted innovator of clinical methodologies, as well as a highly respected clinical researcher and prolific contributor to academic journals. She has presented at professional meetings on all six continents and given numerous workshops for clinicians instructing them how to use her tests and intervention materials to best meet the needs of their clients.
Wiig, an ASHA Fellow who is dually certified in audiology and speech-language pathology, has been recognized widely for her achievements. She has received the Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Teaching from Boston University, the Honors of the Massachusetts Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the Margaret Byrd-Rawson Achievement Award, the Editors' Award from Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools (LSHSS), and the Frank R. Kleffner Award of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation. She is consulting editor for numerous journals, including LSHSS, the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, the Journal of Learning Disabilities, and Perceptual and Motor Skills. She is also active in many professional organizations in addition to ASHA including the American Psychological Association, the International Neuropsychological Society, the International Association for Research on Learning Disabilities, and the Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
"It is perhaps a cliché to speak of standing on the shoulders of others in a given profession," says Barbara J. Ehren of the University of Kansas. "However, I can think of no better way to state humbly and appreciatively what Elisabeth Wiig has meant to the profession of speech-language pathology and to all of us who have had the privilege to follow her to say that we indeed stand on her shoulders."
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