Job Opportunities: At times, COMD may have adjunct teaching and clinical education opportunities available. For information, contact Dr. Blake at mtblake@uh.edu

Welcome to our news and events archive page.

• Congratulations Abbie! Doctoral candidate Abigail Dueppen was awarded the ASHFoundation's New Century Scholars Doctoral Scholarship for her dissertation study, A Pre- and Postoperative Treatment Protocol for Patients with Benign Vocal Fold Lesions: A Mixed Methods Approach. This scholarship is designed to support strong doctoral candidates who will pursue a teacher-investigator career in an academic environment at the university/college level in the United States. Abbie's PhD mentor is Dr. Ashwini Joshi.
  
• Dr. Wynn Receives Grant Camille Wynn was awarded an NIH R21 grant, Using Speech Entrainment to Predict Conversational Outcomes in Autistic Adolescents. Congratulations Dr. Wynn!
  
• Congratulations Michelle! Doctoral candidate, Michelle Hernandez, was invited by NIH/NIDCD to attend the inaugural NIDCD Diversity Scholar Workshop. Given her numerous honors, Michelle was asked to provide insight into the transition from a diversity supplement to a fellowship award.
  
• Newsletter Publication MA student Christina Quinn, along with Drs. Heather Dial and Austin Thompson co-authored the lead article "Communication Challenges in Parkinson's Disease" in the October Journey newsletter from the Houston Area Parkinson Society.
• Congratulations Brandi! The poster presentation submitted to the ASHA Convention by Brandi Becoats, COMD doctoral student, has been designated as a Meritorious Poster Submission! The poster is “Preparing Graduate Student Clinicians to Lead Aphasia Conversation Groups”.
• Congratulations Sofia! PhD student Sofia Machado presented at the American Cochlear Implant Alliance conference in Vancouver. Her travel was funded in part by a Cullen Graduate Travel Fellowship. Sofia's poster "Exploring the Impact of Home Language Exposure on Spanish Outcomes of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Spanish-English Bilingual Children Who Use Cochlear Implants" was awarded 1st place poster (rehab category).
• ASHA 2024 COMD faculty and students are participating in the hybrid ASHA Convention held in Seattle, WA. For presentation information, click here. 
  
• Student Scholarship Congratulations to Emily Espinoza, an undergraduate COMD major, who received a scholarship from the University of Houston Hispanic Alumni Association. Selection for this scholarship is based on academic record, extracurricular involvement, and dedication to advancing the Hispanic community.
  
• Scholarship Recipient Congratulations to Fabiha Alam, a first-generation, UG student in COMD! Fabiha was honored to receive one of the CLASS scholarships, which are based on merit and involvement in co-curricular activities to further develop professionally and beyond.
  
• Faculty Promotion Congratulations to Dr. Ferenc Bunta who was promoted to Full Professor! See his faculty page for more information about Dr. Bunta.
• PhD Students Present Research Brandi BeCoats and Kathleen Bradbury, mentored by Drs. Heather Dial and Lynn Maher, received competitive NIDCD fellowships to present their research at the Clinical Aphasiology Conference in Hawaii. Brandi presented on Sentence Context Effects on Speech Perception, and Kathleen presented on The Role of Error in Mapping Therapy for Treatment of Constructional Agrammatism in Chronic Aphasia.
  
• Congratulations Graduate Students! Lydia Mendoza Fellowship awardees Alyssa Peralez and Maritza Yanez will be working closely with the Center for Mexican American and Latino/a Studies to continue Lydia Mendoza’s legacy by attending workshops, sharing their experiences to inspire others, and participating in the Center's academic life. Learn more here.
• ExCITEd About Language Science COMD undergraduate students completed a 4-week program at the Children's Museum Houston under the direction of Drs. Monique Mills, Chereece Andrews, and Grace Lee. The students provided language science demonstrations and hearing screenings to children visiting the museum.
• COMD in Belize The COMD team of faculty, clinical educators, MA, and UG students completed 69 hearing screenings, 66 speech and language screenings, and 9 complete communication evaluation. To find out more, click here.
  
• Congratulations to Emory Twitty, 2023-2024 UH NSSLHA President, who received the Rising Leader for Speech-Language Pathology award and to the UH NSSLHA chapter which received Bronze Chapter Honors!
  
• Congratulations Dr. Mills! COMD is thrilled to celebrate Monique Mills who was awarded a UH Teaching Excellence Award for Community Engagement!
• Undergraduate Research day. Congratulations COMD UG students, Sydney Tunches, Isabella Guzman, Doris Miranda, and Noor Hmaidan, who presented their projects at the UH UG Research Day. For more information, click here.

• Undergraduate Research. Sydney Tunches, who is mentored by Dr. Monique Mills, is featured on UH's Scholar Walk and in an article, Students in the Spotlight During Undergraduate Research Day, highlighting Undergraduate Research Day.

• Dr. Dial Receives Grant Heather Dial was awarded an NIH R21 grant, Reliability and Validity of Temporal Response Function Modeling in Aphasia. Congratulations Dr. Dial!
  

• Community Engagement Hearing screenings were provided by our COMD graduate students during the Easter Egg Hunt in East End. Go Coogs!
• Join us in Celebrating Dr. Lynn Maher! 
  UH COMD is hosting an ASHA CEU event to celebrate Dr. Lynn Maher’s retirement! Join us on Saturday, May 18 from 3-5 PM for Advances in Language Disorders: Aphasia and Apragmatism featuring Drs. Randi Martin, Tatiana Schnur, and Peggy Blake. This event is free of charge, but we will be accepting donations to the UH COMD Fund in Dr. Maher’s name. A retirement celebration will follow. Registration is required for both events. Space is limited. Register here by May 10, 2024.
• PB Program Information Session UH COMD will host a virtual interest meeting for the Post Bac Leveling Program on Thursday, April 25th 2024 from 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm. Topics will include application requirements, pre-requisites, course requirements. To RSVP, please contact Byron Ross, Program Director blross3@cougarnet.uh.edu or Aylin Castro, Academic Advisor acastr38@central.uh.edu. The link for the presentation will be sent to those who RSVP as we get closer to the meeting.
• Congratulations Dr. Blake! Margaret "Peggy" Blake authored her third COMD book, Acquired Neurogenic Communication Disorders: An Integrated Clinical Approach. The trilogy is complete!  
• We would like to welcome Michelle Andrade who is the new Clinic Director for the University Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic.
• Congratulations Dr. Hill!  Sharon Grigsby Hill was officially awarded her PhD from the University of Birmingham on December 5. They know how to have a ceremony in the UK!!
• ASLI Program Collaborates with College of Medicine ASLI faculty, Drs. Naomi Sheneman, Sharon Grigsby Hill, and Merrilee Gietz, created and conducted a simulation for the College of Medicine. Medical students practiced as providers working with interpreters (ASLI senior students) in providing medical care to Deaf patients (Deaf community members). Congratulations to all involved!
• Welcome COMD Faculty! We would like to welcome our newest faculty members: Allyson Schaff, Naomi Sheneman, and Austin Thompson. To read more about them, click here.
• Congratulations Dr. Grigsby Hill! Sharon Grigsby Hill received a Cougar Initiative to Engage (CITE) grant, which promotes co-curricular experiences, to support her project: Let’s Engage! Service Learning to the Deaf Community.
• Congratulations Dr. Castilla-Earls! Anny Castilla-Earls and her co-authors received the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research Editor's Award for their article "The Comple Role of Utterance Length on Grammaticality: Multivariate/Multilevel Analysis of English and Spanish Utterances of First-Grade English Learners".
• COMD Represented at ASHA COMD faculty and students are presenting at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Assocation's Annual Convention in Boston, MA. To find out more, click here.
  
• COMD Graduate Student Presents Research Christina Quinn and her mentor, Dr. Heather Dial, presented their research, Utilization of Resting-State Electroencephalography Spectral Power in Convolutional Neural Networks for Classification of Primary Progressive Aphasia at the Academy of Aphasia Conference in Reading England. This work is from Christina's undergraduate thesis.
  
• Congratulations Dr. Castilla-Earls! Anny Castilla-Earls and her co-authors received the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research Editor's Award for their article "The Comple Role of Utterance Length on Grammaticality: Multivariate/Multilevel Analysis of English and Spanish Utterances of First-Grade English Learners".
  
• Dr. Mills Receives ASHA Research Grant Kudos to Monique Mills who received an ASHA New Century Scholars Research Grant for her study, Listening and Learning in a Second Dialect: An Eye-Tracking Study.
  
• Congratulations Dr. Thompson! Dr. Austin Thompson received an ASHA Distinguished Early Career Professional Certificate. This award recognizes outstanding professionals who are making an impact in leadership, volunteering, and advocacy.
  
• Congratulations Dr. Rubino! Marianna Rubino, a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Ashwini Joshi, received the award for Best Oral Research Presentation for her research, Identity as a Barrier and Facilitator in Voice Habilitation and Rehabilitation, which was presented as the Pan-American Vocology Association Symposium.
  
• Michelle Hernandez Awarded Grant COMD PhD candidate, Michelle Hernandez has been awarded an NIH NIDCD F31 grant for her project titled “The Role of Interlocutor Behavior on Code-Switching Patterns in Bilingual Children with and without Developmental Language Disorders”. Congratulations to Michelle and her mentor, Anny Castilla-Earls! This is the first NIH F31 grant, a pre-doctoral training grant, to UH COMD.
• Back-to-School Block Party COMD participated in the community event on August 11. Over 70 hearing screenings were completed and resources on speech and language development were shared. UH COMD making a difference!
• UH COMD at Mayor's Back 2 School Festival Graduate students from COMD administered 294 hearing screenings in the Speech, Language, and Hearing unit at the Mayor’s Back 2 School Festival. They talked with hundreds of families about speech, language, and literacy milestones, sharing resources about developmental language disorder and speech therapy services at the University Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic. Go Coogs!
• COMD in Belize The COMD team of faculty, clinical educators, PhD, MA, and UG students completed 65 hearing screenings, 59 speech/language screenings, 17 speech/language evaluations, and 3 hearing evaluations.
• Congratulations Dr. Ross! Byron Ross received a Cougar Initiative to Engage (CITE) grant, which promotes co-curricular experiences, to support undergraduate student mentors in the Program for Supporting and Mentoring Students with Autism.
• Congratulations Dr. Bunta! Ferenc Bunta (UH), Alex Sweeney (Baylor College of Medicine), and Rodrigo Silva (Texas Children's Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine) received a research grant from Cochlear Corporation to investigate how potential health disparities and home language use may affect access to care as well as speech and language outcomes in individuals with sensorineural hearing loss who use cochlear implants.
• COMD Graduate Student Wins Award! Tynashia Whitaker received the Graduate Student Employee of the Year Award. Click here to find out more.
• Congratulations COMD SURF Recipients! Sydney Tunches, mentored by Dr. Monique Mills, and Doris Miranda, mentored by Dr. Amber Thiessen, were awarded Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships. They will present the results of studies at Undergraduate Research Day in Spring 2024.
• Congratulations COMD Research Students! Angela Dion successfully defended her Master's thesis, Context Effects on Sublexical Processing in Older and Younger Neurologically Typical Adults, and Christina Quinn successfully defended her Honor's thesis, Spectral Power Density Analysis of Patients with Primary Progressive Aphasia Using Resting-State Electroencephalography. Both were mentored by Dr. Heather Dial.
• Congratulations to Dr. Chereece Andrews who was promoted to Clinical Associate Professor and Dr. Sharon Grigsby Hill who was promoted to Instructional Associate Professor.
• Congratulations Dr. Castilla-Earls! Professor Anny Castilla-Earls was awarded an NIH NIDCD R01 grant! Find out more about her study, The Relationship between Child Language Proficiency and Language of Treatment on the Outcome of Bilingual Children with Developmental Language Disorder.
• Congratulations Dr. Grigsby Hill! Sharon Grigsby Hill, Instructional Assistant Professor, received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham.
• SURF Recipients Present Research We are proud to congratulate COMD undergraduate students, Laurent Bernadel and Alejandra Gomez (working with Dr. Thiessen), and Lacey Knowles and Claudia Ramirez (working with Dr. Bunta) who presented their work at the UH Undergraduate Research Day! To learn more about their research, click here.
• Congratulations COMD Students! Tynashia Whitaker is Vice President for Academic Affairs for the National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Kiera Simmons is Student Representative and Student Activities Committee Chair of the National Black Association of Speech-Language-Hearing. Congratulation both for being elected to these important leadership positions.
• Welcome COMD Staff! Anita Cortez is our new Administrative Coordinator and Alyin Castro is our new COMD UG, PB, and ASLI Academic Advisor. We are pleased to welcome both to our department.
• USLHC Summer Programs It’s time to Discover The Magic! Click on the USLHC Summer Programs to learn more about the programs offered this summer. Summer camp is the perfect opportunity for children to continue working on developing their speech and language skills in a fun and supportive environment.
• Congratulations Dr. Wynn! Camille Wynn was accepted for the ASHA Lessons for Success program. This program provides intensive training to early career COMD scientists.
• Congratulations Dr. Mills! Monique Mills won a Cougar Initiative to Engage (CITE) grant, titled ExCITEd About Language Diversity, to prepare students in Communication Sciences and Disorders with the requisite theoretical and conceptual background to: (1) understand widely held views about language and its variation and (2) to administer clinical assessments of language variation to elementary students visiting the Children's Museum of Houston.
• Congratulations Dr. Mills! Monique Mills was awarded an NIH NIDCD R21 grant. Click here, Dialect Detection in School-Age Black Children: An Eye-Tracking Study, for more information on the study.
• TSHA Convention Presentation Congratulations to three of our dynamic clinical educators who were accepted to present at the Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association meeting in Austin. Danielle Devore, Alayna Townsend, Dionne Walker will present Methods and Tools to Enhance Your Supervisory Skills.
• Congratulations Dr. Mills! Monique Mills was awarded an NIH NIDCD R21 grant. Click here, Dialect Detection in School-Age Black Children: An Eye-Tracking Study, for more information on the study.
• COMD Provides Hearing Screenings in the Community On September 17, COMD students offered free hearing screenings at the 2022 Candidates Forum at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church and at the UH football game later that day. A total of 84 screenings were provided.
• Congratulations Ms. Tragesser! Jane Tragesser, Director of the University Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, received a prestigious President’s Excellence Award for Administrative Professionals.
  
• PB Program Information Session  The UH Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders will host an interest meeting for the Post Bac Leveling Program on Friday, November 11th from 2pm-3pm. Topics will include application requirements, pre-requisites, course requirements. To RSVP, please contact Byron Ross, Program Director blross3@cougarnet.uh.edu or Jessica Zoll, Academic Advisor jczoll@Cougarnet.uh.edu.
• ASHA Leadership Program Congratulations to Elaine Love and Elisabeth Berry! Both COMD undergraduate students were accepted into the prestigious ASHA Minority Student Leadership Program.
• COMD Conference Presentations Faculty and COMD students have presented at numerous meetings this Fall. To find out more, click here. 
• Congratulations Dr. Mills! Monique Mills and her co-authors received the Language, Speech and Hearing Services in the Schools Editor's Award for their article "Perceptions of Black Children’s Narrative Language: A Mixed-Methods Study".
• Congratulations Dr. Blake! Kudos to Dr. Margaret Blake for her recognitions as a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
• UH COMD at Mayor's Back 2 School Festival - COMD on the move! Graduate students from COMD administered 231 hearing screenings in the Speech, Language, and Hearing unit at the Mayor’s Back 2 School Festival. Together with COMD undergraduate students, they distributed 1000 boxes of crayons, informational brochures, and pamphlets. Go Coogs!
• COMD UG Receives Award - Congratulations to Krishauna Burnett who was the recipient of a Student Scholarship Award from the UH Systems Black Leadership Network. 
• Welcome Zuleyma Reyes, COMD Program Coordinator! - Zuleyma Reyes has been with UH for ten years previously serving as the office coordinator for the Children’s Learning Center. She has extensive experience in working with college students as well as programs and office administrations. She enjoys road trips with her husband and kids, cooking and watching documentaries.
• NBASLH Award to UH Student Chapter Congratulations to our COMD student chapter who won the National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing 2022 Student Affiliate of the Year Award!!
• ASLI Collaboration with Main Street Theater The UH American Sign Language Interpreting Program is collaborating with Main Street Theater in “Pete the Cat” on April 2. Each actor will be shadowed by an ASL student performer who will deliver the lines in ASL. This allows for deaf and hearing audience members to watch and enjoy the action on the stage together.
• Drs. Margaret Blake and Tatiana Schnur (Baylor College of Medicine) were awarded an NIH NIDCD R01 5-year grant. Click here, Recovery of Language and Theory of Mind after Stroke, for more information on the study.
• Congrats Kristen Rollins! 4.0 Summa Cum Laude graduate Class of 2022.
• USLHC Summer Programs Click here to learn more about the programs offered this summer. CCG will "Discover the Magic" in-person, and Sound Wizards and Reading Wizards are virtual programs focusing on speech sounds and literacy. SwIFT is a swallowing and feeding specialty clinic. Click here to view the magic from Summer 2021.
• Congratulation Dr. Mills! Monique Mills has been named Editor-in-Chief for Group 1 in Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups.
  
• Congratulations Dr. Dial! Drs. Heather Dial and Pepe Contreras-Vidal (ECE) were awarded a $25,000 IUCRC BRAIN Center industry-funded seed grant. This grant supports a project aimed at developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) for decoding spoken language from neurophysiological signals recorded using EEG. This project marks a major step toward developing BCIs that can be used as assistive technology for individuals who cannot produce speech on their own.
• COMD Presenting at NBASLH Numerous COMD faculty members and students are presenting at the National Black Association for Speech-Language-Hearing Convention in Houston, March 17-19. Please click here for presentation dates and times.
• UH COMD on the Move! Graduate students from COMD, Optometry, and Social Work joined forces to provide universal screenings to the students at Blackshear Elementary School. Together, the graduate students screened three grade levels for vision, hearing, and speech.
• Publications from COMD Faculty Congratulations to Drs. Bunta and Castilla-Earls on their recent publications in Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics and Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
• Congratulations Dr. Blake! Dr. Blake has authored a new book, Clinical Neuroscience for Communication Disorders with article published in the Plural blog.
• Silent Garden 2022 Distinguished Lecture Series Sharon Hill has been invited to speak at prestigious Silent Garden Lecture Series at Fresno State. Her presentation topic is: Finding What is Lost – The Challenge of Creating Human Connection in the Interpretive Experience.
• ASHA 2021 COMD Faculty are participating in the hybrid ASHA Convention held in Washington DC. For presentation information, click here.
• Class of 2023-2024 We are happy to introduce our latest cohort of M.A. students.
• Welcome PhD Students COMD is pleased to welcome our new and returning Ph.D. students.
• We are pleased to welcome Heather Dial, Ph.D. and Katherine Ermgodts, Ph.D. to our faculty. To find out more about them, click here. 
• New Publications from Associate Professor Amber Thiessen Congratulations to Amber Thiessen, Ph.D. on her two recent publications in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.
• Journal of Voice Publication Congratulations to Ashwini Joshi, Ph.D. and Teresa Procter, COMD alum, on their publication in the Journal of Voice.
• Congratulations Drs. Dunkelberger and Pott! Martha Dunkelberger was promoted to Instructional Full Professor and Scot Pott was promoted to Instructional Associate Professor.
• Congratulations Class of 2021!
• Congratulations Arden Alldredge! 4.0 Summa Cum Laude graduate Class of 2021.
• Congratulations Dr. Ross! Dr. Byron Ross received the William T. Simpkins Service Award from the National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing.
• New Publication Congratulation to Dr. Anny Castilla-Earls on her recent manuscript published in Speech, Language, and Hearing Services in Schools!
• USLHC Summer Programs The University Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic (USLHC) at the University of Houston is pleased to offer multiple summer programs. The Cougar Communication Group will Discover the Magic in-person, and Sound Wizards and Reading Wizards are virtual programs focusing on /s/ and /r/ sounds and literacy. Page Turners targets adult literacy, and SwIFT is a feeding therapy clinic.
• Kudos to Monique Mills, Ph.D. for coordinating a forum as well as contributing multiple articles in the journal Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. To hear Mills' interview with ASHA on this topic, click here. 
• See My Blackness and Acknowledge It – Congratulations to Sharon Hill for her recent publication in NEWSLI, the quarterly journal for sign language interpreters in the UK.
• Congratulations Anny Castilla-Earls, Ph.D.! – Castilla-Earls was recently named to the Language and Communication Study Section of the National Institutes of Health.