About Me 

Thank you for visiting my website!

For the past nine years, I have had the privilege of working as a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP), serving individuals with a variety of communication and swallowing needs, ranging in age from teens to seniors.

I was born and raised in Interior Alaska and “found” Speech Pathology after my daughter experienced a severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) at age 17 in a terrible motor vehicle accident. Her bones healed with skilled medical care, but it was the SLPs in her rehabilitation who helped her regain cognitive skills that enabled her to resume living an independent life.

I was able to embark on my SLP training two years after my daughter’s accident, thanks to a collaborative, distance-education program between the University of Alaska Anchorage and East Carolina University. This program permitted me to remain in Alaska while pursuing my education. I earned my Master’s Degree in Speech Language Pathology from East Carolina University (Go Pirates!) in 2011.

During the first years of my SLP career, I had the incredible opportunity to work for a non-profit, outpatient speech clinic, providing services to adults and young adults in Interior Alaska. There are few SLP providers for adults in Interior Alaska, so I worked with and learned from individuals experiencing a wide variety of communication and swallowing challenges. I also provided cognitive communication rehabilitation services to individuals recovering from brain injuries related to trauma, stroke, and neurodegenerative disease processes. While the setting was challenging to a new SLP, the incredible variety of needs my clients presented with was a great gift and prompted me to develop expertise across many facets of this rewarding profession.

During my time working at the outpatient clinic in Alaska, I also gained valuable skills from opportunities that included:

• coordinating the outpatient speech clinic with invaluable support and guidance from the agency director and staff;

• co-developing community programs to support families and caregivers in developing and implementing “home-based” strategies to increase language skills for adults experiencing communication challenges;

• facilitating a weekly “technology lab” where volunteers worked one-on-one with clients and families, helping them learn to use technology to compensate for cognitive and communication challenges; and

• developing and teaching a distance education course in Neurological Foundations of Speech & Hearing for SLP undergraduate students, as adjunct faculty with the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Three years ago, after living the majority of my life in Alaska, I made the decision to move to New England to live closer to one of my children. Along with a geographical change, I embarked on a new phase in my professional career. For the past three years I have provided home and community based SLP services primarily to seniors. This work has been incredibly rewarding and I have had many more opportunities to continue honing my SLP skills.

My commitment in all these experiences has been to provide quality and caring services to clients and families, supporting them to maximize their independence, life participation, and quality of life. . . and always learning from the courageous and resilient human beings who have graciously shared their journeys with me.

Thank you!