色色研究所

Students and faculty from the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) made an extraordinary impact at the 2025 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention in Washington, D.C. This year鈥檚 convention highlighted USF鈥檚 growing national presence in audiology, speech-language pathology, hearing science and communication disorders research.

USF attendees delivered dozens of presentations, received high-profile awards and were recognized with several prestigious honors from ASHA and the ASHFoundation.

ASHA Fellow Honors

Aimee Dietz, PhD, CCC-SLP, received ASHA鈥檚 highest professional distinction, ASHA fellow. Fellowship serves as a public declaration of an individual's exceptional professional achievements. She also delivered two invited sessions: "Tracking Meaningful Changes During AAC Therapy for People with Aphasia via SOAP Notes" (with postdoctoral fellow Mounia El Jaouhari, PhD) and "Resilience in Academia (roundtable)."

ASHA Centennial Session Award

The Auditory Rehabilitation and Clinical Trials (ARCT) Lab, led by faculty researchers Victoria Sanchez, AuD, PhD, CCC-A/F-AAA; Michelle Arnold, AuD, PhD, and Theresa Chisolm, PhD, CCC-A, earned an ASHA Centennial Session Award for the podium presentation "Evidence of Reduced Fatigue with Hearing Improvement from Early Age-Related Hearing Loss Pilot Study." The Centennial Session Award was developed specifically for the 2025 ASHA Convention and recognizes presentations that are forward-thinking and have the potential to significantly impact the field.

Additional ARCT Lab presentations included:

• Optimizing Cochlear Implant Programming: Insights from an Expert Panel
• Achieving Auditory Wellness Leads to Improved Health Outcomes: Evidence from the ACHIEVE Study
• The ACHIEVE Trial: Takeaways for Clinical Practice to Improve Auditory Wellness
• Normative Extended High-Frequency Audiometry and Its Relationship to Speech-in-Noise Deficits

ASHFoundation New Investigators Research Grant

Hana Kim, PhD, recieved the ASHFoundation New Investigators Research Grant. The New Investigators Research Grant is designed to help further new investigators' research activities by funding one-year, preliminary studies that could launch larger-scale research studies. Kim's study is focused on exploring the clinical potential of virtual reality (VR) for older adults with cognitive decline. 

Student Awards

Doctoral student Diane Martinez, AuD, CCC-A, was selected for the highly competitive Audiology/Hearing Science Research Travel Award, which supports AuD students, AuD/PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in audiology or hearing science who have an interest in pursuing a research career in communication sciences and disorders.

Anna Soares, MS, a second-year doctoral student, was one of only 12 students nationwide selected for an ASHFoundation scholarship. This national honor recognizes graduate students who have shown exemplary academic performance and demonstrated strong promise in advancing the field of communication sciences and disorders. She was formally recognized at the foundation鈥檚 recognition ceremony on Nov. 20.

Graduate student Claire M. Dorey received a competitive mentoring travel award and delivered a 30-minute talk titled "Extended High Frequency Audiometry and Its Relationship to Speech-in-Noise Deficits."

Presentations by Faculty

Supraja Anand, PhD (Poster Presentation)

• Acoustic Changes in Speech Before and During High-Speed Videoendoscopy (with presenting author Maitreyee Kulkarni and co-author Olivia Horvath)
• Cognitive Loading in Healthy Young Adults: A Dual Task Experimental Paradigm (with presenting author Mary Pyfrom and co-authors Mrinmoy Turja, Sean Aleman, Tristan Valenzuela, Shovan Shakya, Thang Pham, and Ashwin Parthasarathy)
• Micro- and Macro-Structure Discourse Analysis in Idiopathic Parkinson鈥檚 Disease (with presenting author Diana Perez and co-authors Amanda Debrard, Viviana Vallejo, and Hana Kim)
• Use of Visual-Analog Scales in Dysarthria Assessment 
• Multidimensional Perceptual Structure of Hypokinetic Dysarthria (with co-author Mitchell Harrah)

Ruth Bahr, PhD (Poster Presentation)

• From Mechanics to Meaning: How Spelling Skills Fuel Vocabulary Growth and Powerful Writing
• When Social Cues Clash: How Adults with DLD Process Emotional Mismatches - technical session (with presenting author Ansley Davis)

Gerald C. Imaezue, PhD (Oral Presentations)

• ABCD: A Simulation Method for Accelerating Virtual Conversational Agents for Speech Therapy - technical session  (with co-author Harikrishna Marampelly)
• Scoping Evidence to Support Speech-Language Pathology Neurorehabilitation for People from Diverse Communities - seminar

Hana Kim, PhD (Poster Presentations)

• Return-to-Work in People with Mild Aphasia (with presenting authors Maya Berro and Marcy Edwards and co-authors Viviana Vallejo, Stephanie Tomlinson, Ansley Davis and Ruth Bahr)
• Uncovering Hidden Language Impairments: A Multilevel Discourse Analysis (with presenting authors Marcy Edwards and Diana Perez)
• Micro and Macrostructure Discourse Analysis in Idiopathic Parkinson鈥檚 Disease (with presenting author Diana Perez and co-authors Amanda Debrard, Viviana Vallejo, and Supraja Anand)
• Exploring Virtual Reality for Language Sampling: Feasibility and User Experience

Jennifer Lister, PhD (Poster Presentation)

• Linguistic Indicators of Mild Cognitive Impairment (with presenting author Anthony Lister and co-author Laura Conover)

Natalie Pak, PhD (Poster Presentation)

• A Systematic Review of Visual Scene Display Interventions in Early Childhood (with co-author Elaine Derby)