May 21, 2023 |
Congratulations to the recipients of 2023 scholarships and awards. The undergraduate and graduate students recognized within these pages have shown outstanding dedication and creativity in the pursuit of their personal and professional goals. We are very proud of your achievements. Click the link to read the PDF program.
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May 22, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo
Holly Panfil knew from a young age that she wanted to support people with disabilities. As she grew up, her passion also grew, and she got involved with organizations that provided her opportunities to work with people who have intellectual or developmental disabilities.
“I had opportunities such as Big Brothers-Big Sisters, where I formed connections with children who communicate nonverbally, and observed their frustrations of not being able to articulate their thoughts,” Panfil said.
Panfil was also part of a Youth Activation Committee, which pairs children with and without intellectual disabilities to teach them how to advocate for the respect, inclusion and
acceptance of all people, regardless of abilities.
“That is what got me started and what made me really passionate about inclusion,” said Panfil, a junior in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois.
In fact, Panfil wanted to be a special education teacher, but her career path took a turn when, as a high school senior, she shadowed a speech pathologist.
“Once I found out there was a career that could work on communication skills and improve those, especially for people that use AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) devices, I just thought that was really cool and something I wanted to pursue,” she said. “Through observing her, it really just didn’t take long for me to realize that this was the career for me.”
And as Panfil pursues a career in speech language pathology, part of her journey includes her plans for the summer. Panfil this winter earned a Fulbright Canada-Mitacs Globalink internship, allowing her to travel to Chicoutimi in Quebec after the spring semester ends. An experience Panfil had last summer led her to apply for the Fulbright.
“Last summer, I worked at an Easterseals camp called Rocky Mountain Village in Colorado,” she said. “It’s a camp for kids and adults with different kinds of intellectual, developmental, or physical disabilities. One week I got to work with a camper who’s 17 and has cerebral palsy and uses an AAC device. I really got to see the issues with AAC devices and her skipping out on parts of conversations because she couldn’t communicate as fast as she wanted to. Just seeing her frustration with that was hard.”
Panfil scanned the Fulbright listings, not expecting to see anything related to speech and hearing science, she said, adding that most research opportunities “seem to be for engineers and computer science majors.”
This time, she was happily surprised. She saw a listing to work with Dr. Julie Bouchard from the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi on the “voice output communication aid uses in the workplace” project.
“Once I saw that there was a project that related to improving AAC devices, I was pretty set on applying,” Panfil said.
With encouragement from her mentor, Dr. Raksha Mudar of SHS, Panfil applied and got the coveted internship. She leaves for Canada in May and will spend the summer working with Bouchard.
“The goal of the project is to learn how VOCA (voice output communication aid) users communicate in the workplace and discover strategies to improve those conversations with coworkers. I will be focused on transcribing and cleaning audio data of VOCA users to prepare it for analysis,” she said.
While Panfil is focused on her work this summer, she is also making plans for the future.
“My plan is to get my master’s in speech language pathology. And I’ve been in the process of researching different programs and trying to narrow down my list … and yes, (Illinois) is on the list, she said. “My time in Dr. Mudar’s lab has made me consider getting a Ph.D. to pursue a career in research. That wasn’t my plan coming into college. I’m hoping that this summer will maybe offer some clarity on that idea.”
Editor’s note:
To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
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Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo
Alicia Kraay’s study shows getting vaccine boosters and using non-pharmaceutical interventions can reduce cumulative deaths from COVID-19.
In a recent publication, Kinesiology and Community Health assistant professor Alicia Kraay and her collaborators write that combining boosters and non-pharmaceutical interventions results in a 30 percent decrease in cumulative deaths due to COVID-19, with potential for greater impacts if variant-adapted boosters are used.
Non-pharmaceutical interventions, or NPIs, include wearing a mask and social distancing, but also “surface decontamination and improved hygiene,” said Kraay.
According to Kraay’s publication, “The role of booster vaccination and ongoing viral evolution in seasonal circulation of SARS-CoV-2” in the journal The Royal Society, a rise in COVID-19 infection rates are expected this fall as the use of NPIs is relaxed.
“This year, we expect a fall surge, in part because we expect the transmission rate to be seasonal,” she said. “And we’ve also seen people have relaxed NPIs.”
Kraay attributed the decrease in NPIs in part to pandemic fatigue.
“Also, people’s different perception of safety now that vaccination is more widespread,” she said. “Some of the initial strategies that were proposed are simply not sustainable in the long term. It’s not really possible for elementary schools to do virtual learning only for the next 10 years. And there are issues with feasibility in certain contexts like elementary schools, with adequately distancing young children and getting perfect mask compliance.”
But Kraay wanted to emphasize that the important thing about NPIs is they’re not all or nothing.
“You don’t just tell people, ‘Oh, you need to stay at home now because cases might be increasing, and you should do nothing. That’s, I think, what happened at first early in the pandemic,” she said “You’re not going to get high compliance if you make recommendations like that. And it’s also not scientifically appropriate because not every type of interaction has the same level of risk. I think in order to get NPI compliant, it’s being clear about when NPIs are needed and when they’re not and what type is the most effective.”
Kraay, an infectious disease epidemiologist who did her undergraduate work at North Carolina-Chapel Hill and got her Ph.D. at Michigan, recommends wearing a mask in crowded situations you cannot avoid, and limiting appearances at large gatherings.
In terms of boosters, Kraay said ongoing safety studies will be important to ease concerns about vaccine safety, especially among parents.
“It’s going to be important to understand more about the impact of boosters,” she said. “In my paper, we assumed that boosters could reduce risk of infection. But the booster data hasn’t been fully analyzed yet. Seeing what happens with these variant-specific boosters and are there impacts in reducing transmission, and really quantifying how much it can help if you get boosted … at the population level, I think it could be useful.”
One thing Kraay remains uncertain about is whether the current pandemic has made the United States, and the world, for that matter, better prepared to handle the next global health crisis.
“I think we definitely have a better public health infrastructure, [but] I think there are still challenges from the health care access perspective. We know that there’s been a lot of new sources of funding that have been created to allow researchers to respond quickly to emergent priorities. We also know the way that vaccine development was streamlined is a major achievement.
“We have a better capacity to forecast infectious disease patterns over time. And we have new positions that have been created in pandemic preparedness at academic institutions throughout the country. There are challenges with health care access that I think still need to be worked out, [such as] health care access for marginalized populations. I do think we are in a better position just in terms of being able to respond from a public health and testing perspective, hopefully being able to respond more quickly from a vaccination perspective. The challenge still remaining of how to treat the people who do get sick is what I see going forward.”
And although President Biden declared the pandemic over in September 2022, Kraay isn’t as certain.
“COVID as we knew it in February and March 2020 is over,” she says. “I think that it’s true that our experience of COVID-19 has dramatically changed now. But I don’t think that we’re all the way to the point that it’s just in the background. It’s something that we definitely need to monitor. And we’re just not there yet.”
Editor’s note:
To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
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Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo
David Strauser and John Kosciulek received funding to help workers with disabilities transition out of subminimum wage jobs.
The idea of a subminimum wage—enacted in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act—was originally intended to serve as a transition for the large number of soldiers with disabilities returning from war. However, that classification has become permanent for many workers with disabilities.
The U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Services Administration Disability Innovation Fund is seeking to improve access to better-paying jobs for individuals with disabilities, and a project from two Illinois faculty members was among those recently funded.
David Strauser and John Kosciulek, both professors in the Dept. of Kinesiology and Community Health within the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, received funding for their project, “From Subminimum Wage to Competitive Integrated Employment for Illinoisans with Disabilities: An Innovative & Collaborative Project Partnership (SWTCIE Illinois).”
According to the Strauser and Kosciulek, SWTCIE Illinois will increase opportunities for Illinoisans with disabilities to transition from subminimum wage employment to competitive integrated employment (CIE) and redirect to CIE those individuals contemplating subminimum wage employment for the first time.
The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education—Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) through the Illinois Division of Rehabilitation Services in the amount of $13,943,946 for five years from October 2022 to September 2027.
Competitive integrated employment ensures that workers are compensated at or above the minimum wage, and allows both workers with and without disabilities to receive the same benefits and wages for performing the same duties, as well as being given the same opportunities for advancement.
The KCH professors said their first step will be to work with the Illinois Division of Rehabilitation Service and 14(c) organizations in Illinois to develop a new vocational rehabilitation service model that enables individuals with disabilities to transition from sub-minimum wage jobs to CIE. A 14(c) organization is one that has obtained federal government authorization to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities that impair their productivity in the work they perform.
The project’s main goals are to expand opportunities for Illinoisans with disabilities to obtain high-quality CIE that leads to economic security and assist and encourage employers in Illinois to fully include individuals with disabilities in their workforce.
Meanwhile, 14(c) organizations will benefit from their involvement in SWTCIE Illinois because they will be provided resources, training, and special expertise to help the organization assist individuals with disabilities to transition from sub-minimum wage jobs to CIE.
About these grants, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said, “President Biden always says that a good-paying job is about more than a paycheck, it’s about dignity, and that’s why we can no longer accept a status quo in which so many individuals with disabilities are segregated from the workforce and relegated into poverty-wage jobs that offer no pathway to higher earnings. These grants will support innovative efforts underway across the country to provide educational opportunities to youth and adults with disabilities so they can secure better-paying jobs, build economic security, and lead more fulfilling, independent lives.”
Editor’s note:
To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
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Oct. 22, 2022 | Anna Flanagan
Three graduates who received this year’s alumni awards from AHS have amassed impressive accomplishments for themselves while keeping a professional eye on others.
A college president who thinks the best part of leadership is facilitating the achievements of colleagues. An attorney who makes sure companies that provide communications and media services are making them accessible to people with disabilities. A young entrepreneur who makes it his business to help other entrepreneurs succeed.
The three University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduates who received this year’s alumni awards from the College of Applied Health Sciences have amassed impressive accomplishments for themselves while keeping a professional eye on others.
AHS Distinguished Alumni Award
Dr. Trevor Bates is the president of Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio. While completing his master’s degree in kinesiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he served a pre-doctoral fellowship in athletic training (a program in the Department of Kinesiology at the time) and provided clinical athletic training to student-athletes in the wheelchair athletics program of the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES). Of his time in DRES, he said, “It was exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to learn about new and different kinds of injuries, and that’s exactly what happened. I learned that the impact of an injury on the life of a person who uses a wheelchair is a lot different.”
Bates completed his PhD in health sciences through A.T. Still University, with a concentration in leadership and organizational behavior. He is a licensed athletic trainer in Ohio and is nationally certified in athletic training.
Under his leadership, Wilmington College has developed and implemented a five-year strategic plan; introduced its first fully online graduate program; and launched two new graduate programs in organizational leadership and occupational therapy. What he enjoys most about leadership, he said, is seeing other people win. “It is a lot of fun to see my former students become program directors or leaders in organizations, or the people around me experience success as a result of work that we’ve done together,” he said.
Prior to joining Wilmington College, Bates served as vice president of academic affairs, dean of faculty, and professor of health sciences at Mercy College of Ohio, founding associate dean of the Division of Health Sciences and chair of athletic training at Heidelberg University, assistant professor of exercise science and sport at Millikin University (where he earned his bachelor’s degree), and athletic trainer at Decatur, IL, Memorial Hospital.
Committed to promoting and ensuring the advancement of opportunities for underrepresented people, Bates is a strong advocate for the proactive recruitment, retention, and development of high-quality students, staff, and faculty who contribute diverse perspectives and backgrounds that represent the global community. His commitment to underrepresented students is partly selfish, he explained, saying, “I was that student.” He grew up in a neighborhood in Chicago where going to college was not an expectation or common occurrence.
He said, “My mother and father both pushed the value of education and how it can give you broader opportunities. Once I was exposed and began to see the benefits, I understood that there were a lot of people like me whom I wanted to expose to what was possible.”
Bates was honored by the Ohio Athletic Trainers Association with the 2017 Linda Weber Daniel Outstanding Mentor Award and the 2018 Professional Service Award. He also received the 2020 Great Lakes Athletic Trainers’ Association’s Dedicated Service Award in recognition of contributions to the athletic training profession at the state, regional, and national levels.
On receiving the AHS Distinguished Alumni Award, Bates said, “It is extremely humbling to be recognized by the College of Applied Health Sciences. When I received the notification, I was quickly reminded of my mother’s advice. She said, ‘Make a difference. Work hard when no one important is watching.’ Knowing there are countless alumni who have also done outstanding work in their fields, I feel truly blessed to be the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient.”
Harold Scharper Award
Michal Nowicki is an associate attorney with Marashlian & Donahue, located in the metropolitan Washington DC area. He completed his law degree in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law in 2018. During law school, he served as staff writer and notes editor for the Illinois Business Law Journal. He wrote two notes for the journal, both of which were published.
He recalls his law school days fondly, saying, “I was very fortunate to be part of a law school class that bonded closely, especially during the first year when there is no flexibility in choosing schedules. We were in it for the long haul. It was a difficult year. We stuck together and I developed several lifelong friendships as a result.” He enjoyed working with the college’s renowned faculty, who helped him understand the broad array of options available to someone with a law degree.
“DRES really topped things off very well,” he continued. “They consistently provided reliable accommodations so that I could focus on academics and not have to fight for what I needed, as too many people I have known, unfortunately, have had to do in their academic endeavors.”
Nowicki focuses his practice on helping clients comply with a wide range of telecommunications laws. His primary area of expertise centers on laws requiring access for people with physical, sensory, and other disabilities to telephone relay services and other forms of telecommunications, video content and equipment, and other digital products and services. Of his work, he said, “My focus on representing clients in accessibility-related matters is not just to help them comply with accessibility laws, but also to understand and take full advantage of the commercial benefits of incorporating accessibility into every state of product and service design, thereby tapping into a market of millions of people who have not allowed their disabilities to hold them back.”
Nowicki is keenly interested in the 21st-Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) and other accessibility laws. He helped the National Federation of the Blind convince the FCC to deny Amazon’s petition for a permanent exemption from CVAA accessibility requirements for e-book readers. He also worked closely with Comcast and DirecTV to ensure that both companies comply with FCC regulations requiring audio description for blind and low vision customers. Nowicki recently responded to the FCC’s request for public comments on how audio description rules have been implemented, hoping that the FCC will expand the requirements to cover video-on-demand programming and television broadcasts delivered over the Internet.
In 2020, he co-hosted a unique webinar highlighting the wide range of business opportunities arising from making digital products and services accessible to customers with disabilities, presenting alongside the Chief of the FCC Disability Rights Office and the top product designer at Poly, which makes various communication devices. He also provided a highly interactive, in-depth overview of audio description requirements under the CVAA, Americans with Disabilities Act, and Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act at the 2021 Jacobus tenBroek Disability Law Symposium; shared his experiences with online conferencing platforms at an American Bar Association-sponsored webinar on disability access to virtual courts; and delivered an informative presentation on the current state of U.S. video accessibility laws.
Nowicki is a proud leader in the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois (NFBI), with which he has been involved for over a decade. Since November 2020, he has served as the organization’s elected treasurer, preparing its annual budget, strategically allocating grants to attract future donations, and managing tax obligations, among other responsibilities. Mr. Nowicki also co-chairs two important NFBI committees focused on helping blind Illinoisans live productive and independent lives and shaping official NFBI policies on a wide range of blindness issues.
AHS Young Alumni Award
Manu Edakara majored in community health as an undergraduate because his parents wanted him to be a doctor, and he thought it would be the best avenue for preparing for that role. He did not become a doctor, however. Instead, he founded the award-winning iVenture Accelerator, one of the top educational entrepreneurship programs in the country. Still, he thinks his education in AHS prepared him well for his entrepreneurial role.
“I credit my discipline, positive outlook, and holistic approach to leadership and management to my deep understanding of health and wellness and how much it matters,” he said. “I am a healthy leader, and I take pride in that, and often inspire others to live healthier lives.”
As an undergraduate, Edakara worked as a personal trainer for Campus Recreation and became an emergency medical technician. He worked in a hospital cardiac rehabilitation center, helped to train the wheelchair basketball team and Paralympians in the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services, did research in the Exercise Psychology Lab, and worked with veterans with severe mental and physical disabilities at the Jefferson Center for Veterans Affairs.
As director of iVenture Accelerator, Edakara provides a startup ecosystem across the three University of Illinois campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield. Part of a statewide economic development initiative, iVenture Accelerator supports students’ innovative ideas for economic and educational transformation. Its portfolio companies have raised more than $100 million, created more than 600 full-time jobs around the world, and received prestigious international recognition. Edakara serves as the main strategic advisor for all teams on mission, vision, hiring, leadership, raising money, storytelling, operations, and marketing.
“I’m in the line of work I’m in because I believe that business that works is business that solves a problem,” he said. “Good business solves a problem, which helps people. I’m in the business of helping people.”
Edakara also is the co-instructor for the Topics in Entrepreneurship seminar offered by the Gies College of Business,. The seminar attracts students from all colleges, majors, and academic standings across the entire University of Illinois system and Illinois Innovation Network, and is consistently ranked in the top four percent of courses at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His young changemakers have been featured on Amazon Prime documentaries and received Thiel Fellowships from the Society of Women Engineers.
In 2020, Edakara was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. He is a certified personal trainer, emergency medical technician, and formerly competed in men’s bodybuilding. He has been training in kalaripayattu, believed to be the oldest surviving martial art in India, since he was a child.
“I’ve accomplished everything that I set out to do when I graduated college,” he said. “I’m very happy and fulfilled where I am. I’m very grateful for where I am and very humbled. I’m doing what I want and every day is really good.”
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Oct. 22, 2022 | Kim Graber
Welcome to the fall issue of KCH E-News!
The 2022-23 academic year is off to a great start. We enrolled 396 first-year and transfer students in August, and added seven tenure-track and specialized professors to our faculty. Although the return of students to campus led to a spike in COVID cases, the University of Illinois’ revolutionary testing program and voluntary masking in classrooms helped us to bring the positivity rate back down. We will, of course, continue to follow best practices to keep our students, faculty, and staff safe throughout the year.
The KCH faculty continues to experience outstanding success in securing external funding for their research, and you’ll read about some of the most recent grants in this newsletter. Our scholars apply their research to the benefit of the community, as you’ll learn when you read about Dr. Laura Rice’s Illini Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic. You’ll also read about graduate students in our professional master’s degree program in health technology, who contribute to community organizations while gaining valuable experience through capstone projects.
I am so proud to lead this renowned and accomplished group of scholars, earnest and enthusiastic students, and dedicated and hard-working staff who come together to make the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health a truly vibrant and exciting place to be. It gives me great pleasure to report to you that KCH is thriving, thanks in no small part to your continued interest and support!
Kim Graber
Department Head
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Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo
Fatima Husain is the 2022 recipient of the King J. and Marjorie R. McCristal Distinguished Scholar in the College of Applied Health Sciences
Most researchers have an inspiration for their research line. It might be an experience, something they read, or even a TV show or movie. For Fatima Husain, it was more personal.
Dr. Husain, a professor in the Dept. of Speech and Hearing Science in the College of Applied Health Sciences, uses a combination of computational modeling, brain imaging experiments, and behavioral experiments to research hearing and speech perception, as well as the disorders associated with them, such as hearing loss and tinnitus.
When she was a Ph.D student at Boston University, Husain said she had a family member who was dealing with a sudden hearing loss.
“I was already thinking about the brain and sounds, and yet I had not come across tinnitus. I remember being in this [ear, nose and throat doctor’s] office and asking questions. ‘And could it be this? Could it be that?’ And you know how some physicians can be, and he said, ‘Why don’t you find out for yourself?”’
So she did.
“I was always trying to find out more about tinnitus,” she said. “I think it took me another five years after that to come to a place where I could start doing research. I started studying in my own time little by little and asking questions. What stood out to me was how little people knew about it. I hope we know more about it now, but still very little is known; compared to even hearing loss, it is very much more challenging and more complicated, which also allows a space for someone like me who is not a clinician, to provide answers and help people.”
That combination of inquisitiveness, persistence and hard work is one of the many reasons Husain is the 2022 recipient of the King J. and Marjorie R. McCristal Distinguished Scholar in the College of Applied Health Sciences, the most prestigious recognition of scholarly achievement given by the college.
Husain joined the Department of Speech and Hearing Science as an assistant professor in 2008. She earned her Ph.D in cognitive and neural systems at BU and joined the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health, first as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a research fellow.
At the NIDCD, Husain worked with a researcher who had worked in aging research and was coming to deafness and communication disorders.
“He needed someone who was more interested in sounds than in aging or vision,” she said. “But he kept asking me to be the expert at it. I’m like, ‘What? What do I know?’ But it allowed me to become more independent. The primary reason to move there was to learn brain imaging. I wanted good access to brain imaging, and I wanted good access to people who could teach me how to conduct experiments with brain imaging.”
Husain enjoyed her time at NIDCD, but she missed being in an academic setting. She knew leaving would mean uprooting her family—she had a young child at the time–but took the plunge.
“Academia is high risk, high reward, because of the potential of losing it all if you don’t get tenure. In academia, you have more control over your research direction. But it comes with the risk that you can lose your job too if you don’t get tenure, and then what will you do? I kept telling my husband that, after five or six years, we might have to move. He said, ‘That’s fine, really.’ I’m like, “If I don’t get tenure, I’m just going into industry. And I still know how to program and code. That was my plan B.”
Fortunately, Husain didn’t need Plan B. She wanted a university with “an MRI on campus and stellar imaging facilities.”
“[Illinois] had good access to a tool [the MRI] I needed to advance my research agenda. And then it was the fit of the department and the college. So that mattered too. I needed to work with audiologists. I needed to work with clinicians and other individuals who were ready to partner with me. I wanted to study disorders, and I wanted to do science that did not wait to see outcomes 30 years later. I wanted to see the immediate impact of my work on people’s lives. I don’t know if I achieved that, but that was the goal.”
Judging by the award, Husain has achieved the goal, which obviously has great meaning to her. The King James McCristal Scholar Award was established in 1988 to honor King McCristal, dean of AHS from 1961-1973.
“Every year since I’ve been here, I have attended the McCristal Lecture. I enjoy them enormously. I have always looked up to the individuals who have given these talks. It seemed to me that this is the one award we have which recognizes, at a college-wide level, someone’s scholarship—that they are a good scholar, regardless of their precise field.
“(They) have–both narrowly and broadly–thought deeply about some questions and have tried to answer them, and in the process, have helped try to improve the world. So in that sense it means a lot; it means a lot to me.”
Editor’s note:
To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
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Oct. 22, 2022 | Carla Santos
Dear Alumni and Friends,
Welcome to the fall issue of RST E-News! We have had a whirlwind start to academic year 2022-23, enrolling 296 student majors and adding four new professors to our tenure-track and specialized faculties. In this issue, we’ll introduce you to Assistant Professor Nicholas Pitas, Associate Professor Mariela Fernandez, and Teaching Assistant Professors Renata Endres and Jacob Fredericks.
You’ll also read about fascinating research led by RST professors Joelle Soulard, Liza Berdychevsky, Julian Woolf, Mikihiro Sato, and Jon Welty Peachey and graduate student Wonju Lee. We’ll introduce you to graduate student services advisor Tim Tiger and undergraduate student Emily Jordan, who talks about her experiences in RST.
Several undergraduate students also share their thoughts on the 2022 professional applications class, which culminates in a two-week tour of major RST facilities in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, and Massachusetts. We are so proud to continue to offer that experience to our students. As you’ll learn, not only do they gain incredible insight into the behind-the-scenes operations of major recreation, sport, and tourism venues, but they also forge strong, long-lasting bonds with their classmates.
Our faculty, staff, students, and many alumni and friends all help make the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism a community with purpose. RST faculty is innovative and fully dedicated to our students. Our staff supports both our faculty and students in successfully achieving their goals. RST students are committed to the vision of a world in which everyone has access to safe and healthy leisure opportunities. And our extraordinary alumni continue to stay engaged with the department and its students. I am proud and humbled to be at the head of such a dynamic community. Thank you for your continued interest in and support of this department. As we move swiftly toward another holiday season, I wish you peace, prosperity, good health, and great fun!
Dr. Carla Santos
Professor and Department Head
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Oct. 22, 2022 | Pamela Hadley
The Department of Speech and Hearing Science concluded an outstanding academic year with the College of Applied Health Sciences Convocation on May 15. We proudly sent many new audiologists and speech-language pathologists into the world, as well as more than 80 bachelor degree recipients who will pursue many different ways of changing the world. It was a wonderful event, all the more so because we were able to celebrate in person for the first time since 2019. You will meet some of our graduates in this newsletter.
We also held our annual recognition of award and scholarship recipients in person in April. More than two-dozen graduate and undergraduate students benefited from the generous support of our donors. They were chosen because of their amazing academic, professional, and personal accomplishments. We were pleased to be joined by friends and families of our recipients, as well as two of the donors who make these awards and scholarships possible, Dr. Ehud Yairi and Mrs. Nanine Breon. It was a very special event, one that made us so proud of our remarkable students.
Our undergraduate students also made us proud with their participation in the 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium, an event that showcases research excellence across the campus. SHS was represented by 25 students who presented research posters on such topics as factors that improve children’s speech-in-noise recognition, the implications of misophonia for college-age students, and the Lombard effect and speech intelligibility. You can read more about the symposium in this newsletter.
In talking about student achievement, one cannot overlook or overemphasize the importance of outstanding teaching and mentoring. I have always been proud to be a member of the SHS faculty, a committed and caring group of scholars and clinicians who are dedicated to student success. This year, Dr. Raksha Mudar, who serves as our Director of Graduate Studies, received the College of Applied Health Sciences’ Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring Award, an honor of which she is richly deserving. You’ll learn more about Raksha in this issue of SHS E-News. She is highly valued by students and colleagues alike for her wisdom, patience, and calm demeanor.
SHS was proud to play an instrumental role in the planning and execution of World Voice Day in April, a virtual symposium that addressed vocal health through presentations by our own faculty as well as collaborators from the School of Music, Clarke University, the Mayo Clinic, Universita’ di Bologna, Italy, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Illinois Applied Research Institute. This interesting and informative event drew a wide and diverse audience, who learned about the importance of the interaction between the voice and the acoustic environment.
We also present a roundup of clinic news in this issue of SHS E-News. We have exciting new programs and services for clients and are truly a one-stop shop for the diagnosis and treatment of communication-related problems.
I hope you enjoy receiving this semi-annual roundup of news from the Department of Speech and Hearing Science as much as we enjoy sharing it with you. Please let us know what you are doing so that we can share news of alumni accomplishments in future issues. You can reach us at alumni@ahs.illinois.edu. Be sure to include your year(s) of graduation and degree(s), as well as a brief description of your professional achievements.
Dr. Pamela Hadley
Professor and Department Head
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Oct. 22, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo
Helping a person who uses a wheelchair find a chair that fits their lifestyle is as important as helping someone find a pair of shoes that fit or helping someone find the right bike.
That’s the mission of the Illini Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic on the campus of the University of Illinois. The clinic is the creation of Laura Rice, an associate professor of Kinesiology and Community Health within the College of Applied Health Sciences.
The clinic began as a labor of love for Rice.
“Prior to the formal clinic, I was helping students on campus if they needed a new wheelchair, kind of just through DRES (Disability Resources & Educational Services) helping them out, but nothing was really formalized because I just didn’t have time,” said Rice, who is also interim director of the Master of Public Health (MPH) and Master of Health Administration (MHA) programs and associate director of the Center on Health, Aging, and Disability (CHAD).
[When I first moved to Illinois] “I had a 50 percent appointment at DRES, but it was helping out Jeanette Elliott, the physical therapist there,” Rice said. “Then I moved into a tenure track position and I needed to focus my time and effort on research. When I did get promoted, this was a nice opportunity where I had a bit more space to go back to that model. That’s why I started trying to formalize the clinic.”
The idea of a clinic came out of Rice’s previous work in Pittsburgh.
“I did work at a large seating clinic at the University of Pittsburgh. I felt that my interactions in the clinic with end users was really important to fuel my research. And then I also could help support the clients better because I had a strong research background,” she said.
The Illinois clinic has been open for approximately one year, operating out of Freer Hall on the Urbana-Champaign campus. The clinic helps clients select a piece of assistive technology, primarily a wheelchair or a scooter, to help them go about their day-to-day life, whether that’s going to class, going to work, or engaging with friends and family.
“We really try to provide that support so that they can do the activities that they like and they need to do in everyday life,” Rice said.
The Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic is small, and students in the MHA program help Rice with clinic policies, working with clients and helping with billing.
“We’re not part of a large health care system,” Rice said. “The (client) can contact me, and then I work with them. It’s on campus, especially for students, they don’t have to try to figure out transportation to an off-campus location. The majority of people that I work with are people in need of new devices. I’ll talk to them, we’ll do an evaluation. I work with a wheelchair vendor. An example is like, you go to a doctor, he prescribes you a medication, but he doesn’t actually give you the pills. You go to CVS to get the pills. That vendor is the one who provides the actual device in consultation with me, making those recommendations and the person’s physician, ultimately.”
After the chair arrives, Rice and her assistants help make sure it fits the client and makes sure they have proper training.
For Rice, the clinic is the culmination of marrying her research to her work as a physical therapist.
“I really wanted to be able to step back and kind of really look at like, ‘Why am I doing these things? And how can we improve?’ Because, especially for individuals with disabilities, there’s really a lack of research on different ways to support quality of life and community participation. So that is why I got into research was to have that opportunity to better understand the needs of clients I would like to serve and be able to implement those ideas.”
To contact the Wheelchair and Scooter Clinic, email wheelchair-clinic@mx.uillinois.edu.
Editor’s note:
To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
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