Dean's Seminar Series: Lightning Research Talks Featuring Ned Debold, Sarah Goff and Jacquie Kurland
Content
Join us on October 23rd at 12 pm in the Hub Seminar Rooms for the next event in the 2026-27 Dean's Seminar Series. The seminar will feature lightning research talks from three of our SPHHS faculty members: Drs. Ned Debold, Sarah Goff, and Jacquie Kurland.
Featured Speakers:
Ned Debold
Professor of Kinesiology
Title: The Power of One: What single molecule experiments can reveal about the mechanisms of movement in health and disease
Description: The ability of our muscles to generate the force and motion needed to move our bodies results from the collective action of billions of tiny molecular motors, called myosin. The Noble-prize winning technique of laser trapping now enables us to directly visualize and measure these properties at the single myosin molecule level. This information is providing unprecedented new insight into the mechanisms underlying muscle function in both healthy and diseased states.
Sarah Goff
Professor of Health Policy and Management
Title: The Depression Management Project: Implementation of an Innovative Approach to Treating Depression in Patients on Dialysis
Description: Depression is common in patients supported by dialysis and access to treatment is difficult. This implementation study is funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute and tests implementation of the findings of a prior comparative effectiveness trial that found similar effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy and sertraline, a medication for depression, patients on dialysis. The exciting innovation in this study is to train social in the dialysis units to provide tele-CBT in a national dialysis chain to address issues with access to treatment for depression.
Jacquie Kurland
Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
Title: Improving Methods for Measuring Communication Success in Aphasia
Description: People with aphasia and other speech or language impairments frequently communicate better than they talk, yet there is a dearth of clinically feasible tools for measuring communication outcomes. We are developing new tools to assess communication treatment outcomes that leverage large language models to automate the analysis of story retells. If successful, these tools will be accessible to clinicians and clinical researchers who work with people who struggle with reading, writing, speaking, and understanding spoken language across the lifespan.