Diane M. Bless, Professor Emeritus of Communicative Disorders, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Women Faculty Mentoring Program's Doris Slesinger Award for Excellence in Mentoring.
The award will be presented on Monday, Oct. 29 at the WFMP's annual Reception for Newly Promoted & Tenured Women (3:30-5:00 p.m., Union South/TITU). Bless is also Professor Emeritus in the Department of Surgery's Division of Otolaryngology in the School of Medicine and Public Health.
Bless' dedication to mentoring and teaching has made a huge mark on the success of the next generation of clinicians and scientists in her field. She has mentored 23 doctoral students and countless clinical speech-language pathologists. Many of her students are now recognized leaders in the field of voice science and clinical care.
Bless pioneered a joint treatment model for voice disorders, linking otolaryngologists and speech-language pathologists as synergistic partners in the assessment and treatment of patients with voice disorders.
Although Bless has retired from her faculty role, she continues as program director for a research training program for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows in the field of voice science that is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).