By Travis Threats, Ph.D., ANCDS Member

ANCDS Member Travis Threats, from Saint Louis University, photographed with Faith Stagge at the 2024 ASHA convention.

At the 2024 ASHA convention, doctoral student Faith Stagge presented an excellent one-hour seminar entitled “Clinical Applications of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures for Cognitive-Communication Disorders: Current Uses and Overcoming Barriers”.  Faith is a Ph.D. student at the University of Delaware, working under the direction of faculty Dr. Matthew Cohen and Dr. Alyssa Lanzi in their Resilient Cognitive Aging Lab (RECALL).

Faith received her master’s degree in 2018 and started the doctoral program in 2022.

Faith was a star when in our master’s program at Saint Louis University.  I directed her master’s thesis entitled “Development of a Core Set for Acquired Motor Speech Disorders Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF)”).  While in the program, Faith was the recipient of both the ASHA Students Preparing for Academic Research Careers (SPARC) award and the competitive Academic of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences (ANCDS) Conference Fellowship.

Below are quotes from Faith about presenting at ASHA and the pivotal role being an ANCDS Fellow had on her career choices.

Presenting at ASHA:
"It was such an honor to present at ASHA this year, and it was energizing to share research findings with colleagues who are just as passionate as I am about providing the best services possible for those with neurological communication disorders.  Having current and former mentors in the audience was also a wonderful reminder of the incredible support system I have."

ANCDS:
"Being an ANCDS Conference Fellows absolutely reinforced my decision to pursue a clinical research career.  I remember initially feeling intimidated, surrounded by incredible researchers and recognizing names from my textbooks.  However, my mentors were so encouraging of my questions and thoughts, and now I look forward to providing mentorship to others as I grow in my career."