Work: I work as an assistant clinical professor – speech-language pathologist and learning disabilities specialist – at Northwestern University. My job, as I understand it, is to support my graduate students to be the best people and the best clinicians as they go out into the wild.

I was a speech language pathologist at a public school in NJ for several years, owner of a private practice, and a resource room teacher before that. I am “four-times-purple” (Go, Wildcats!), now pursuing a clinical doctorate in Speech Language Pathology. I believe that SLPs are some of the best people in the world, but there is a lot of work to be done in our field. I also believe that school-based SLPs are hidden gems in the public education system. I see it as my mission to roll up my sleeves and drive change in our field by igniting passion in my students, especially for future school-based SLPs.

Clinical area of expertise: I’m not always sure how to answer this question. Part of what it means to work in a school is to learn anything and everything you can about the kids who need help and live in town. Some people call that being a “generalist,” but I call that being a specialist in school-aged children. I have worked with children with a range of difficulties – speech sound, literacy, language, social pragmatics, fluency, voice, etc.