National Press Club Event
Expert Panel
Alex Johnson
|
Anne Marie Tharpe
|
Brenda L. Lonsbury-Martin
|
Brian J. Fligor
|
Dean Garstecki
Alex Johnson
Alex Johnson, PhD, is President of the American
Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and Professor and
Chair of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at Wayne State
University in Detroit, Michigan. His work focuses on the areas of
stuttering, adult and child language disorders, and literacy. He
currently directs a research and service program at the
university called "Bridges to Literacy for High Risk
Children." He was recently appointed as a Special Program
Advisor to the Merrill Palmer Institute and the Skillman Center
for Children at Wayne State. Prior to joining the faculty at
Wayne State, Dr. Johnson served as the Director of
Speech-Language Sciences and Disorders in the Department of
Neurology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
Dr. Johnson has publications in the areas of language
disorders in adults and poststroke aphasia, including two books,
Vocal Arts Medicine (1993) with Michael Benninger and Barbara
Jacobson and Medical Speech-Language Pathology: A
Practitioner's Guide (1998) with Barbara Jacobson.
Prior to being elected as President of ASHA, Dr. Johnson
served as ASHA's Vice President for Professional Practices in
Speech-Language Pathology (2000-2002). He is a Fellow of ASHA,
one of the highest honors bestowed by the association in
recognition of professional or scientific achievements and
contributions to the professions. He received his BA and MA
degrees from Kent State University and his PhD degree from Case
Western Reserve University.
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Anne Marie Tharpe
Anne Marie Tharpe, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the
Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences (DHSS) at Vanderbilt
University and Associate Director of Education for the National
Center for Childhood Deafness and Family Communication at the
Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center for Otolaryngology and
Communication Sciences in Nashville, Tennessee. She also serves
as a research investigator with the John F. Kennedy Center for
Research on Human Development at Vanderbilt. Most of her work has
focused on the early identification and intervention of hearing
loss in the preschool and school-age child.
In addition to her research, Dr. Tharpe maintains a clinical
practice. She also teaches numerous graduate courses, including
pediatric audiology and educational audiology at Vanderbilt, the
Central Michigan University/Vanderbilt University
distance-learning doctor of audiology program, and the First
Years distance-learning program for early interventionists
working with children with hearing loss at the University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her publications include more than 60
journal articles, book chapters, and books, including
Amplification for Children With Auditory Deficits (1996).
Dr. Tharpe has served as principal and coinvestigator on 20
grants. She received a BS degree in hearing and speech sciences
from the University of Arizona, a MS degree in audiology from the
DHSS at Vanderbilt School of Medicine, and a PhD in audiology
from Vanderbilt.
Read Anne Marie Tharpe's Statement
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Brenda L. Lonsbury-Martin
Brenda L. Lonsbury-Martin, PhD, is Chief Staff Officer for
Science and Research at the American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association and a Research Professor in the Division of
Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Surgery, at
Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Loma Linda,
California. Her research interests include the early detection of
hearing loss using physiological measures of ear function, basic
mechanisms of noise-induced hearing loss, the role of the
cochlear efferent system in protecting the ear from noise damage,
and cochlear plasticity. Her research has been funded by the
National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Lonsbury-Martin is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of
America and a member of a number of professional societies that
represent research in the basic and clinical sciences of hearing.
Dr. Lonsbury-Martin also serves on the editorial boards of a
number of journals in the hearing science and audiology areas and
on the review panels of several private foundations that fund
research on hearing loss and tinnitus.
She received her BA from the University of Victoria, her
Masters in neuroscience/cell biology from the University of
Oregon Medical School, and her PhD in biopsychology from Oregon
Health and Science University. She also completed postdoctoral
fellowship training in psychobiology and in physiology and
biophysics at the University of California, Irvine and the
University of Washington, respectively.
Read Brenda L. Lonsbury-Martin's
Statement
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Brian J. Fligor
Brian J. Fligor, ScD, is Director of Diagnostic Audiology at
Children's Hospital Boston and an instructor in Otology and
Laryngology at Harvard Medical School. An undergraduate
background in biomedical engineering and a brief stint as an
aspiring rock guitarist in a local Boston band led Dr. Fligor to
pursue a career in audiology. After acknowledging a much greater
affinity for people than for computers, and finding an appalling
rate of acceptance that noise-induced hearing loss "is just
a fact of life" for serious musicians, Dr. Fligor found
himself at Boston University pursuing a doctoral degree in a
clinical research track in audiology. After completing his
clinical fellowship at Children's Hospital in Boston in 2002,
he stayed on as a postdoctoral fellow, seeing patients and
conducting research studies on the acquired causes of hearing
loss.
Dr. Fligor's publications include a study of output levels
of headphones and the potential risk to hearing from their use,
and identification of specific risk factors for hearing loss in a
select group of critically ill newborns. Upon completion of the
postdoctoral fellowship, he was honored with a promotion to
Director of Diagnostic Audiology at Children's Hospital
Boston. He has been interviewed about his research on the use of
iPods and other MP3 devices and hearing loss, appearing on NBC
Nightly News and CBS Evening News, and in articles published in
the
New York Times, Washington Post,
and
Rolling Stone Magazine.
Read Brian J. Fligor's Statement
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Dean Garstecki
Dean Garstecki, PhD, is Professor of Communication Sciences and
Disorders in the School of Communication and a Professor of
Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery in the School of Medicine at
Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He teaches courses
in hearing impairment, research in clinical audiology, and
professional ethics. His research addresses the psychosocial
aspects of hearing loss management in adults, including the study
of telephone amplifiers and other assistive listening devices for
individuals with hearing loss. He has published over 50 articles
in leading scientific and professional journals, as well as
chapters in 25 textbooks, and he has delivered over 275
professional presentations on topics in hearing loss
management.
Dr. Garstecki is currently a member of a National Institutes
of Health project examining research integrity in the
speech-language pathology and audiology professions. He is a
Fellow of the Illinois Academy of Audiology, American Academy of
Audiology, and American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, as
well as a Founding Fellow of the Hugh Knowles Center for Research
in Hearing at Northwestern. Additionally, he has served as head
of the Northwestern University Audiology and Hearing Sciences
Program, Director of the Hugh Knowles Center for Research in
Hearing, and Chair of the Department of Communication Sciences
and Disorders at Northwestern.
Dr. Garstecki received his BS and MS degrees in audiology and
speech-language pathology from Marquette University, and his PhD
degree in audiology from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.
Read Dean Garstecki's Statement
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