Faculty

About our faculty:

Our award-winning faculty has decades’ worth of experience educating students in the classroom and in clinical settings, preparing future generations of clinicians and researchers in the field. Faculty expertise extends to many pressing communication disorders problems such as neurological disorders, including aphasia and apraxia of speech; speech perception and comprehension; autism spectrum disorders; multicultural voice differences and language development in children; aging and hearing loss; auditory processing, binaural and spatial hearing; and cochlear implants and hearing aids.

 

  • Mary V. Andrianopoulos

    Professional Title:
    Associate Professor
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    mva@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-0551
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, Room #305B
    Personal Website:
    http://people.umass.edu/~mva/
    Education:

    B.S., University of Vermont, 1979; M.S., University of Utah, 1983, Ph.D., 1988; Post-doctoral Fellow, Mayo Clinic, 1988-1990; CCC-SLP.

  • Jane A. Baran

    Professional Title:
    Professor and Department Chair
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    baran@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-0565
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, Room 201E
    Education:

    B.A., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1972, M.A., 1974; Ph.D., Purdue University, 1979; ASHA Fellow, CCC-A/SLP.

  • Yu-kyong Choe

    Professional Title:
    Assistant Professor
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    ychoe@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-4297
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, Room #201C
    Personal Website:
    http://people.umass.edu/ychoe/
    Education:

    B.A., Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea), 1991; M.A., Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea), 1993; M.S., Arizona State University, 2003; Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2008; CCC-SLP.

  • Richard L. Freyman

    Professional Title:
    Professor and Undergraduate Program Director
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    rlf@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-0298
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, Room #201C
    Education:

    B.S., Pennsylvania State University, 1976; M.A., Temple University, 1978; Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1984; CCC-A.

  • Karen S. Helfer

    Professional Title:
    Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    khelfer@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-4014
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, Room 201B
    Education:

    B.S., Boston University, Speech and Hearing Sciences, 1982; M.A., Indiana University, Audiology, 1983; Ph.D., Northwestern University, Hearing Science, 1988

  • Jill Hoover

    Professional Title:
    Assistant Professor
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    jrhoover@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-3177
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, #308
    Education:

    B.S., University of Minnesota, 2001; M.A., Northern Illinois University, 2003; Ph.D., University of Kansas, 2009

  • Jacquie Kurland

    Professional Title:
    Assistant Professor
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    jkurland@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-4007
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building
    Personal Website:
    http://blogs.umass.edu/jacquie
    Education:

    B.A., New Mexico State University, 1986; M.S., University of New Mexico, 1999; Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder, 2006; Predoctoral Fellowship, Boston University Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center, 2003-2005; Postdoctoral Fellowship,...

  • Patricia A. Mercaitis

    Professional Title:
    Associate Professor and Director, Center for Language, Speech and Hearing
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    mercaitis@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-2565
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, Room #304
    Personal Website:
    www.patmercaitis.com
    Education:

    B.A., Boston College, 1971; M.A., UMass Amherst, 1979; Ph.D., UMass Amherst, 1983

  • Giang Pham

    Professional Title:
    Assistant Professor
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    gtpham@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-8468
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, #308A
    Personal Website:
    www.vnspeechtherapy.com
    Education:

    B.A., University of Illinois, 2001; B.S., University of Illinois, 2001; M.A., San Diego State University, 2003; Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2011; Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Minnesota, 2011-2012, CCC-SLP.

  • Sarah F. Poissant

    Professional Title:
    Associate Professor
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    spoissant@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-4016
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, Room #308B
    Education:

    B.A., University of Vermont, 1992; M.A., University of Connecticut, 1994, Ph.D., 1999; CCC-A.

  • Gwyneth C. Rost

    Professional Title:
    Assistant Professor
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    grost@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-3636
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, #307B
    Education:

    B.A., Grinnell College, 1995; M.A., University of Louisville, 2002, M.S., 2005; Ph.D., University of Iowa, 2011; CCC-SLP.

  • Nathaniel A. Whitmal, III

    Professional Title:
    Associate Professor
    Department:
    Communication Disorders
    Email:
    nwhitmal@comdis.umass.edu
    Telephone:
    413-545-4848
    Campus Address:
    Communication Disorders Building, Room #305A
    Education:

    B.S., MIT, 1986 (Electrical Engineering); M.S. Northwestern, 1993 (Electrical Engineering); Ph.D., Northwestern, 1997 (Electrical Engineering); M.S., Univ. Mass., 2004 (Communication Disorders); CCC-A, American Speech-Language Hearing...