UT Dallas students and faculty win three ASHA competitive awards

Speech, hearing researchers recognized

UT Dallas students and faculty have won three competitive awards from the American Speech Language and Hearing Association (ASHA), which will present the prizes at its annual conference this week in San Diego.

The awards were competitively granted to national and international candidates based on peer-reviewed measures of excellence. The ASHA Program Committee considered a record number of proposals and candidates this year. More than 12,000 people are expected to attend the annual professional meeting Nov. 17-19.

Dr. Emily Tobey, the Nelle C. Johnston Chair in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, received the ASHA Research Mentoring-Pair Travel Award with Dr. Sophie Ambrose, a postdoctoral fellow at the Boy's Town National Research Hospital. The mentoring-pair award, one of the most competitive presented by ASHA, honors the two investigators for their mentoring activities in the field of cochlear implantation.

The prize will enable the pair to attend the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders research symposium. "As the research leader for the Dallas Cochlear Implant Program, a joint enterprise between UT Dallas Callier Center, UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children's Medical Center, I am happy to reach out to other members of our scientific community to enhance the quality of life for individuals using cochlear implants," Tobey said.

Amy Louise Schwarz, who is working toward her PhD in communication sciences, earned the New Century Scholars Doctoral Scholarship from ASHA. The $10,000 scholarship supports strong doctoral candidates who are committed to working in higher education in the U.S. in the field of communication sciences and disorders.

Madhu Sundarrajan, another PhD candidate in communication sciences, won an ASHA travel award for her research paper comparing sounds produced in young children with cochlear implants. The award enabled her to attend the national conference.