(Rockville, MD—December 8, 2006) -Noma Anderson, PhD, CCC-SLP, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Florida International University, will become President of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) January 1, 2007. A speech-language pathologist, Dr. Anderson has been an ASHA member for 31 years.
Dr. Anderson will hold her volunteer leadership post for one year. During that time, she plans to "communicate more broadly with members and the people we serve on the issues most important to ASHA." Important issues for her include professional autonomy, evidence-based practice, health care reimbursement, cultural and linguistic diversity, personnel shortages in health care and education, and doctoral shortages.
"As ASHA moves forward," according to Dr. Anderson, "it is vital that we are able to attract students, both men and women from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, to careers in speech-language pathology and audiology." Dr. Anderson adds: "It is important that we provide them with the very best academic and clinical education so that they will be able to provide high-quality clinical service to clients from a wide variety of diverse backgrounds."
Over the years, Dr. Anderson has been an ASHA volunteer leader in several key ways. She served on ASHA's Executive Board and has also been named an ASHA Fellow, one of the highest honors that ASHA bestows.
Dr. Anderson holds a BA from Hampton Institute, a MS from Emerson College, and a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh.
ASHA is the national professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 123,000 audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists. Audiologists specialize in preventing and assessing hearing disorders as well as providing audiologic treatment including hearing aids. Speech-language pathologists identify, assess, and treat speech and language problems including swallowing disorders.
