The Department of Communicative Disorders is pleased to announce the 2011 recipients of Department scholarships.
These scholarships and awards are made possible by the generosity of alumni, families of alumni and friends of the Department. Recipients are chosen annually on a competitive basis according to the criteria established for each award.
Congratulations to the recipients!
The Frederic A. Gruber Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Aaron Johnson, a doctoral candidate in speech-language pathology and a pre-doctoral fellow on the UW Voice Research Training Grant studying with Dr. Nadine Connor.
As a former professional singer and teacher of singing, Johnson's research interests are the mechanisms underlying the prevention and treatment of voice disorders in professional voice users and the aging population.
This scholarship honors Dr. Fred Gruber who earned his Ph.D. in 1997 inCommunicative Disorders and was on the faculty at Lamar University, Beaumont,Texas, at the time of his untimely death in April 1999. This scholarship honors Dr. Gruber’s commitment tothe highest standards of academic excellence, his love of teaching, and his outstanding research andservice contributions to his profession.
The Shana Kay Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Rachel Reichow who is a junior majoring in both Communicative Disorders and Italian, with honors distinction in both majors.
Upon graduation in May 2012, Reichow plans to attend graduate school. Reichowhopes to work as a pediatric speech-language pathologist in a medical setting. She is currently a member of the Language & Cognitive Neuroscience Lab as well as the Study of Children's Thinking Lab. She is working on her senior honors thesis which looks at how a pre-reader's knowledge of letter names influences later reading abilities.
Shana Kay was a diligentand enthusiastic student at UW-Madison planning for a career in speech pathology. Sadly, she passed away after her freshman year in2005 from viral encephalitis. Shana was a spirited but serious student who was committed to helping people with communicative disorders. Her compassionate and magnetic personality would have contributed to her success as a speech-language pathologist. Since 2008, the Shana Kay Memorial Scholarship has been granted to a student with a commitment to excellence in communicative disorders.
The Lewis Family Scholarship and the Frank V. Powell Award were awarded to Danielle Barash who is a first year Masters student in Communicative Disorders.
Barash is a alumna of the University of Washington in Seattle. Her field of interest is in motor speech and autism spectrum disorders in young children. She volunteers with birth to three-year-olds with special needs through the Communication Aids and Systems Clinic/Communication Development Program at the Waisman Center.
The Lewis Family Scholarship is in honor of UW-Madison alumni Paul and Nancy Lewis. Nancy is a speech-language pathologist in Minnesota public schools. She received a scholarship when she was a student and continues to “pay it forward”.
The Powell Award is in honor of Frank Powell, a director of the Division for Handicapped Children in the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.He was an educator in Wisconsin for nearly fifty years and was interested in the field of “speechcorrection”, as it was known. His family created a fund in his memory and the award has beencontinued since 1958.
The Loon Fellowship Award was awarded to Kim Falkenstein, a first year graduate student in the Doctor of Audiology program.
Falkenstein is an alumna of Miami University (BA'92, American Studies) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (MPH'97, Health Behavior and Health Education). She is the proud mother of an amazing 9-year-old son and spends her free time volunteering at his school, playing LEGOs and watching Cartoon Network.
The Loon Fellowship Award was established by a group of alumni of the master's program in Communicative Disorders and recognizes the contributions by a Master’s or AuD student who createsand fosters a sense of community and fellowship among graduate students.
The 2011 Awards Committee was chaired by Dr. Ruth Litovsky and members included Dr. Amy Hartman, Dr. Cynthia Fowler, Trish Haza, Maureen Garity, Trici Schraeder and Nancy Castignetti (as a student representative).