Communication Sciences & Disorders
Associate Professor (2001)
M.A. University of Delhi, India; Ph.D. Wichita State University;
Teacher, researcher, and clinician, Dr. Bajaj's areas of expertise are fluency disorders and speech science. His research interests include examining the psycholinguistic bases of stuttering, stuttering identification, and applications of qualitative methodologies in stuttering research. Dr. Bajaj has published in the area of stuttering in the Journal of Fluency Disorders and Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics and on epistemological beliefs in the Journal of Education Psychology. He has presented his research at national and international conferences.
Cynthia Bartlett
Graduate Program Director and Associate Professor (1985)
A.B. Indiana University; M.A. Indiana University; Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh;
Teacher, lecturer, author, researcher, and specialist in adult neurogenic communicative disorders, Dr. Bartlett has authored or co-authored articles in Brain and Language, Aphasiology and the Journal of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, as well as several book chapters. More than 15 years of hospital and medical center clinical experience provide the impetus for her ongoing interests in speech, language, and communicative difficulties in adults with acquired brain damage.
Timothy Edgar
Graduate Program Director for the Health Communication Program and Associate Professor (2002)
B.A. Eastern Illinois University; M.A. Purdue University; Ph.D. Purdue University;
Dr. Timothy Edgar’s professional career has been devoted to conducting quantitative and qualitative health communication research on topics as diverse as HIV/AIDS, physical activity for adolescents, childhood and adult immunization, diabetes, epilepsy, and peptic ulcers. Prior to working at Emerson, Dr. Edgar was a Senior Study Director with Westat, a social science research firm in Rockville, Maryland. Dr. Edgar has also taught health communication and research methods at the University of Maryland, the University of Wisconsin, and The George Washington University. Dr. Edgar has published widely in professional journals such as The Journal of Health Communication, Health Education Research, and Health Communication, and he has contributed to edited volumes such as The Handbook of Health Communication. He also co-edited the book, AIDS: A Communication Perspective, and he currently is working on a second book about HIV issues called AIDS and Communication in the 21st century. Dr. Edgar currently serves on the editorial boards of Health Communication and the Journal of Health Communication.
Belinda Fusté-Herrmann
Assistant Professor (2009)
B.A. Appalachian State University; M.A. University of North Carolina, Greensboro; Ph.D. University of South Florida, Tampa;
Ruth Grossman
Assistant Professor (2008)
B.S. Boston University; M.S. Boston University; Ph.D. Boston University;
Dr. Grossman's research interests are in the field of autism spectrum disorders, specifically the integration and production of verbal and nonverbal communication, such as the use of facial expressions and prosody during verbal interaction. She has published articles in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, and other refereed journals. She has taught classes in adult neurogenic disorders, neuro-anatomy/physiology, and child language development, presenting information from clinical, research, and theoretical perspectives.
Jon Honea
Scientist-in-Residence (2008)
B.A. University of Arkansas; M.A. Portland State University; Ph.D. University of Washington;
Dr. Honea is an ecologist interested in the response of communities, populations, and individual species to environmental change. He has taught courses on the ecology and management of forests and aquatic ecosystems as well as on general environmental science. His research subjects have ranged in scale from microscopic phytoplankton to insects of all sizes to 50+ pound Chinook salmon. He has recently published papers on the influence of salmon spawning on aquatic insect communities and on the potential for habitat restoration to improve the survival of endangered salmon. He is currently working on a population dynamics model to understand the negative influences on wild salmon of their interbreeding with hatchery salmon as well as to explore potential effects of climate change on the population status of endangered wild salmon.
Vinoth Jagaroo
Associate Professor (2003)
B.A. University of Natal, South Africa; Ph.D. Boston University School of Medicine;
Dr. Jagaroo is a cognitive neuroscientist with research interests in the areas of visuospatial function and spatial cognition – how the brain is involved in the processing and perception of space and higher order vision. Dr. Jagaroo is currently studying the application of information technology to neuropsychology – specifically in developing a computerized system to map large-scale visual fields.
Daniel Kempler
Chair and Professor (2002)
B.A. University of California, Berkeley; M.A. University of California, Los Angeles; Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles;
Respected researcher, author, lecturer and teacher, Dr. Kempler is a specialist in acquired neurologically based communicative disorders in adults. He the author or co-author of well over 100 scholarly articles, abstracts, chapters, books and reviews including presentations of his research at dozens of conferences nationally and internationally in the areas of aphasia, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, aging, and culturally non-biased assessments. His research has appeared in journals such as Brain and Language, Aphasiology, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, Neuropsychology, Neuropsychiatry, and Behavioral Neurology, Archives of Neurology, and Journal of Speech and Hearing Research. Dr. Kempler has recently written a textbook Neurocognitive Disorders in Aging (Sage Publications, 2005), and together with his colleague Zoe Hunter authored The Spanish Intelligibility Test (2004), an assessment tool to evaluate speech intelligibility in Spanish speakers.
David Luterman
Professor Emeritus (1960)
B.A. Brooklyn College; M.S. Pennsylvania State University; D.Ed. Pennsylvania State University;
Dr. Luterman is a well-known teacher, researcher, author, consultant, and lecturer. He is a specialist in the hearing-impaired and in counseling. His books include Counseling the Communicatively Disordered and their Families, Deafness in Perspective, Deafness in the Family, When your Child is Deaf, In the Shadows: Living and Coping with a Loved One's Chronic Illness, The Young Deaf Child, and Early Childhood Deafness (with Ellen Kurtzer-White). Dr. Luterman has presented many lectures and symposia around the world.
David Maxwell
Professor (1966)
B.S. Southern Illinois University; M.S. Southern Illinois University; Ph.D. Southern Illinois University;
Teacher, researcher, consultant, lecturer, with expertise in stuttering, orofacial malformations, and neurogenic disorders of speech and language, Dr. Maxwell has held appointments and consultancies at Boston University Medical School, Tufts New England Medical School, Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Douglas Thom Clinic and numerous public schools and rehabilitation agencies throughout New England. He is the co-author (with Dr. Eiki Satake) of Research and Statistical Methods in Communication Disorders and Theory of Probability for Clinical Diagnostic Testing. His current research interests are in the role of temporal information processing in speech and language, working memory operations in oral language, and the use of probability statistics to improve the accuracy of diagnostic testing.
Eileen McBride
Scholar-In-Residence (2005)
M.S. Queen's University, Belfast; Ph.D. City University, London;
Tracy McLaughlin-Volpe
Assistant Professor (2007)
B.A. Paedagogische Hochschule Heidelberg; M.A. Paedagogische Hochschule Heidelberg; Ph.D. State University of New York, Stony Brook;
Alisa Morgan
Faculty-In-Residence (2008)
B.S. University of Massachusetts, Amherst; M.S. University of Wisconsin, Madison; Ph.D. University of Kansas;
Dr. Morgan studies neurological processes as they relate to communication. Her post-doctoral fellowship in acquired neurogenic speech and language disorders was divided between clinical and research responsibilities. She has published in the journals Brain and Language, Aphasiology, and Neurology and presented scholarly papers on areas ranging from an auditory Stroop effect to clinical language intervention protocols for aphasia at conferences such as the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the Clinical Aphasiology Conference.
Wyatt Oswald
Assistant Professor (2006)
B.A. Dartmouth College; M.S. University of Washington; Ph.D. University of Washington;
Dr. Oswald is an ecologist with teaching and research interests spanning the earth and environmental sciences. His primary scholarly focus is the response of ecosystems to climate change, which he approaches by analyzing lake-sediment cores to reconstruct past environmental changes. He has worked on sedimentary records from northern Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, the Intermountain West, and New England. This research has appeared in journals such as Ecology, Quaternary Research, The Holocene, and Journal of Biogeography.
Dr. Oswald is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University's center for research and education in forest ecology and conservation, located in Petersham, Massachusetts.
Mark Parker
Assistant Professor (2005)
B.A. San Diego State University; M.S. Portland State University; Ph.D. Louisiana State University;
Dr. Parker received his MS in Audiology and PhD in Neuroscience. Dr. Parker teaches classes in Audiology as well as classes in the Science curriculum. His research investigates the therapeutic application of stem cell in hearing loss. Dr. Parker's research merges the fields of genetic engineering and stem cell biology in an attempt to repair the damaged biological structures that result in hearing loss. Dr. Parker is also a Lecturer at Harvard Medical School and he conducts his research at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, MA.
Eiki Satake
Associate Professor (1988)
B.A. University of California; Ed.M. Columbia University; M.S. Columbia University; Ed.D. Columbia University;
Teacher, researcher, and consultant with expertise in Bayesian Statistics, Dr. Satake is the author or co-author of several instructional textbooks (with Drs. David Maxwell and Philip Amato) such as Research and Statistical Methods in Communication Disorders, Actuarial Mathematics of Finance, and Mathematical Reasoning. His research has appeared in journals such as Communication Research, Educational and Psychological Measurement, and AMATYC Review.
Amy Vashlishan Murray
Assistant Professor (2009)
B.A. College of Holy Cross; Ph.D. Harvard University;
Dr. Vashlishan is a molecular biologist with research and teaching interests at the intersection of genetics, neurobiology, and public understanding of science. Her current laboratory work utilizes genetic approaches to explore how neurons can adjust their activity in response to changes in the environment, leading to alterations in behavior. A member of the National Association and Science Writers and theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Sciences, she also maintains a scholarly focus on the communication and impact of science. She has worked in exhibit development at the Boston Museum of Science and was a former director of the non-profit public science education program and seminar series Science in the News at Harvard Medical School.
Julie Volkman
Assistant Professor (2009)
B.A. The Pennsylvania State University; M.A. Michigan State University; Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University;
Prior to joining
