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By University Communications
July 9, 2008

A University of Arizona training program created to address an acute shortage of researchers in audiology and speech-language pathology who have earned doctorates has received a $1.2 million federal grant.

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health, awarded the five-year training grant to the program's director, Barbara Cone-Wesson, a professor in the department of speech, language and hearing sciences. The co-director is Elena Plante and the faculty who will be involved with the training grant are Julie Barkmeier-Kraemer, Pélagie Beeson, Tom Christensen, Jeannette Hoit, Andrew Lotto, Steven Rapcsak, Brad Story and Dianne Van Tasell, all professors in the department.

“We will capitalize on our department’s strong history of promoting minority recruitment and retention in the professional research training program," Cone-Wesson said. "We will have minority research mentors from outside of our department as well. These mentors are successful scientists at other institutions who also come from a minority background.”

Doctorate-holding researchers are needed in order to advance the scientific bases of clinical practice and to train future practitioners. The goals of the training program are to: attract the most highly qualified students in UA graduate clinical training programs to the Ph.D. program and provide these students with the research training needed to pursue a successful research career that supports the clinical aspects of communication disorders.

Thirteen students will be supported for three years as they undertake research training. The training program integrates the Ph.D.-level research-focused training with the requirements of the graduate clinical training programs. The program includes a strong emphasis on clinical research methods, mentored laboratory research experiences, grantsmanship, the ethical conduct of research and teaching.