Roberta J. Elman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BC/ANCDS is the President/CEO and Founder of the Aphasia Center of California. The Center is an independent, nonprofit organization currently providing conversational, reading/writing, caregiver, and recreational groups for more than ninety individuals with aphasia and their families in the Northern California Bay Area.

Prior to beginning the Aphasia Center of California, Dr. Elman was Co-Director of Rehabilitation at an Outpatient Medical Rehabilitation Center. She also served as Director of the Speech-Language Department. Dr. Elman has more than 25 years of experience in the assessment and treatment of neurogenic communication disorders. She is the author of numerous professional publications and is the editor of a book for Plural Publishing entitled Group Treatment of Neurogenic Communication Disorders: The Expert Clinician’s Approach, Second Edition. Dr. Elman is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and serves on the Steering Committee of the Clinical Aphasiology Conference. In 2006, Dr. Elman was awarded the prestigious Jefferson Award which recognizes local citizens for their outstanding public service to the community.

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Dr. Claire Penn is a speech-language pathologist who has worked for many
years in the field of Aphasia. She graduated in South Africa, but has
worked and traveled in a number of countries. She is currently serving
at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Dr. Penn is a
founding member of the Stroke Aid Society in South Africa and is
co-editor of the book Stroke: Caring and Coping . She has been published
in numerous publications dealing with Aphasia and serves on the
editorial board of Aphasiology . Dr. Penn has focused her research on
enhancing the communication skills of people who suffer from Aphasia.
She has a special interest for personal narratives of people surviving
with Aphasia on a day-by-day basis. She has recently won a Presidential
award in South Africa for her work and was a category winner in Woman of
the Year award in 2008. Her current research includes training of health
professionals in improving communication skills with patients in a
cross-cultural setting .

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Carole Pomilio, M.S., CCC-SLP, is currently serving as a speech-language Teacher at the Kyrene Schools in Arizona. Carole has had the responsability of evaluation and treatment of adults with dysphagia, traumatic brain injury, and other neurogenic communication disorders. Prior to this current position, Carole held a similar position Waco, Texas and for ten years as a speech-language pathologist at the University of Michigan located in Ann Arbor, MI. Her duties also included the supervision of graduate student interns and CFY candidates.

In 1984, Pomilio received her bachelor’s degree in speech-language pathology from Stockton State College located in Pamona, NJ. Pamilio then received her master’s degree in speech-language pathology from the University of Michigan in 1985. She has participated in a variety of research activities and presentations over the course of her career. Among her activities, Carole served as speaker coordinator for the National Aphasia Associations’ Speaking Out! 2000 national conference in Washington DC.

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Leonard L. LaPointe, Ph.D. received his Bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado. He currently occupies and endowed chair, the Francis Eppes Professor of Communication Disorders, at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

Dr. LaPointe is also Co-director of Neurolinguistic-Neurocognitive Research Center for Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. He is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology. Previously, he served as both a professor and Chair of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at Arizona State University.

LaPointe’s research focus is in the area of neurological cognitive and communitcative disorders, especially apahsia, neuromotor speech disorders, and the effects of right or left hemisphere lesions on attention, memory, reasoning, and the control of information processing.

LaPointe is the co-author or editor of three books, 22 book chapters, a reading test for aphasia, the Base-10 Response Form (a system for measuring clinical progress), and more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has presented over 300 papers, lectures, or invited workshops in the United States, the former Soviet Union, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina. He was awarded the Honors of the Arizona Speech-Language Hearing Association. He is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. In 1998, LaPointe was presented The Honors of the Association, ASHA’s higest award, in recognition of distinguished career contributions to the field of speech-language pathology.

New books available by Dr. LaPointe from Thieme Medical Publishers.com:
1. Aphasia and Related Neurogenic Language Disorders
2. Atlas of Neuroanatomy for Communication Science and Disorders

New books from Plural Publishing.com:
LaPointe, Murdoch, and Stierwalt, Brain-Based Communication Disorders
LaPointe, Paul Broca and the Origins of Language in the Brain

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Margaret M. Forbes, M.S. received her education from:
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA- M.A., Speech-Language Pathology
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA- M.A., English
Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Lynchburg, VA- A.B., English

MARGARET’S EXPERIENCE:
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH MEDICAL CENTER
Department of Otolaryngology Center for Speech, Language and Swallowing, October 1993-present. Coordinator of Speech-Language Pathology for Montefiore University Hospital Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit

School of Nursing Consultant since 2000 for the office of research.. Read, edit, critique grant proposals for research design, style, content, compliance with agency requirements.

Department of Neurology Clinical Director of Aphasia Center, January 1993-September, 1997. Clinical Instructor

Department of Psychiatry

Language and Aging Research, Senior Research Associate then Principal Research Associate

Office of Grants and Contracts, Senior Administrative Specialist, then Coordinator, Mellon Summer Research Training Program in Psychiatry

Healthy Aging Program on Sleep, Program Coordinator

Alzheimer Disease Research Center, Training and Information Coordinator

Behavioral Neurology of Aging Training Program, Coordinator

Stroke Recovery Project, Research Associate

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Teaching Fellow Clinical Instructor

CURRENT:
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
Researcher on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, working on the AphasiaBank Project (NIH funded, PI Brian MacWhinney).

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

CERTIFICATION
Certificate of Clinical Competence, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

License in Speech-Language Pathology, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

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Anne Ver Hoef, MA, CCC-SLP operates a private practice in Anchorage, Alaska. She provides home, community and office-based speech-language pathology services. She also provides inpatient and outpatient rehabilitative services for several hospitals in Alaksa, as well as several home healthcare agencies. Ms. Ver Hoef has been in private practice for 23 years, working with people of various etiologies for their communicative disorders, most often dealing with neurologically-based problems. Her primary area of interest is in addressing cognitive-language issues, especially as it regards assisting people back into a functional lifestyle in the home, community, school, and work.

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Mary Beth Clark is a speech-language pathologist who has worked for more than 15 years in the area of Communicative Disorders and Rehabilitation. She is currently working as a Supervisor in speech language pathology at Luther Midelfort, Mayo Health System in Eau Claire, WI. Her primary clinical interests are aphasia and traumatic brain injury. She is focused on assisting individuals and families achieve meaningful functional outcomes within their rehabilitation. She has collaborated with numerous individuals and families to provide volunteer program opportunities for people living with aphasia. She is co-developer of the Chippewa Valley Aphasia Group in Eau Claire, WI and is the Chippewa Valley Aphasia Camp director.

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Audrey Holland, Ph.D., CCC/SLP, BC/NCD, is the Regents’ Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Arizona. She has served on the Advisory Council for the US National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIH). She is currently a member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Prosthetics and Special Disabilities, US Department of Veterans’ Affairs. She is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Communication Disorders, and a recipient of the Honors of the American Speech, Language, & Hearing Association. She received the Clinical Achievement Award from the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, as well as the Professional Achievement Award from the Council of Graduate Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders.

She has published over 145 research articles, book chapters, and reviews, in addition to editing three books and developing the test of functional commumnication known as CADL (recently revised as CADL-2 with Davida Fromm and Carol Frattalli).

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Nan Musson, M.A., CCC-SLP, BC-NCD-A, is the Coordinator for Speech Pathology Services for the North Florida/South Georgia Veteran’s Health Care System. She holds adjunct faculty appointments with the Departments of Neurology and Communicative Disorders and is a courtesy lecturer with the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Her research interests include aphasia and dysphagia and she is an Executive Board Member with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Rehabilitation Research & Development Brain Rehabilitation Research Center of Excellence. Nan has been a clinician for the past 22 years and strives to provide high quality clinical care, share knowledge with professionals from a variety of disciplines and to review research from basic science to clinical practice to improve communication interventions for individals after stroke.

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Dr. Kristine Lundgren is a speech-language pathologist who has worked for many years in the field of communicative disorders and rehabilitation. Dr. Lundgren received her Sc.D. degree in Communication Disorders from Boston University, where she also received her Master’s degree in Communication Disorders. Dr. Lundgren served as the Administrative/Clinical Director of the Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center at the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM). She is currently an Assistant Professor of Neurology (SLP) at BUSM and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Further, she has received NIH funding for her stoke and traumatic brain injury treatment studies. Dr. Lundgren also serves as both a Board member on the Massachusetts Brain Injury Association and as an active member of the American Stroke Association?s Northeast Rehabilitation and Recovery Committee.

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