About the professionals (in alphabetic order by last name):
Hope Gerlach, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is an assistant professor at Western Michigan University. Her research focuses on identifying and reducing disparities in quality of life between people who stutter and typically fluent speakers. Currently, she is studying the role of stigma and identity constructs (e.g., concealment) in psychological distress among adults who stutter. She has been actively involved in support organizations for people who stutter and has worked as a speech-language pathologist at several summer camps for youth who stutter.
Charles Hughes, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BCS-F, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Eastern Kentucky University. From 2015-2018 he served as a Board Member for the American Board of Fluency and Fluency Disorders and was past Chair of the Board for a one-year term in 2017. As a Board Certified Specialist in Fluency, he focuses on the assessment and treatment of stuttering. He oversees the stuttering clinic at the Eastern Kentucky University Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic and has published and presented on the topic of stuttering at the state and national levels.
Farzan Irani is a Professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at Texas State University. His research interest is in the psychosocial aspects of stuttering, bilingualism and stuttering, and treatment outcomes of stuttering therapy. His passion is working clinically with adolescents and adults who stutter using holistic, evidence-based therapy.
McKenzie Jemmett M.S., CCC-SLP, COM is an individual who stutters and currently works as a School Speech Language Pathologist in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has been involved with the stuttering community for numerous years and serves as a host for Stutter Social. She enjoys teaching Zumba, trying new recipes, exploring new outdoor adventures and connecting with others from around the world.
Dr. Pallavi Kelkar is a Speech-Language Pathologist from Pune, India. She presently works as Assistant Professor at the School of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology, Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University). She has been working with children and adults who stutter and their families over the past 14 years. She is actively involved in the activities of the International Cluttering Association as one of its international representatives. Her research primarily focuses on quantification of the impact of stuttering and cluttering. In line with this, she stresses on prioritizing the “person” rather than their “speech” through the use of cognitive behavioral approaches alongside speech therapy. Through student research projects and public education programs, she aims to explore public perceptions about stuttering and change them for the better.
Stephanie Lebsack, MS, CCC-SLP Steff became a speech-language pathologist because she has an older brother, Jasper, who is a person who stutters. Steff specializes in the treatment of stuttering and cluttering and is the current course designer/instructor for the graduate Fluency Disorders course for the Baylor University online Master’s Degree Program. She lives with her husband Kevin, her two beautiful young children Mary and Karter and a pug named Ritchie. When she isn’t playing with her kids or catching up on stuttering current events, she can be found baking, writing or reading. She is honored to be on the professional panel this year for the ISAD conference!
Jaime Michise: Over the course of my eleven-year career as a speech-language pathologist, I’ve worked in Ohio, Japan, and Texas. I began my career working at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) in Cincinnati, Ohio. During this time, I worked with children with a wide variety of communication disorders and began to focus on working with individuals who stutter. In 2016, I moved to Nagoya, Japan and spent two years working with children and families in the international community. In 2018, I moved back to the U.S. and started a private practice in Frisco, Texas (a suburb outside of Dallas). I focus on working with children, teens, and adults who stutter. I’m also a team facilitator at Camp Shout Out for Youth who Stutter, a co-leader of the Dallas Teen Chapter of the National Stuttering Association, a co-host of the ACT to Live podcast, and I teach adjunctly at Stephen F. Austin State University and Bowling Green State University.
Ana Paula Mumy is a trilingual speech-language pathologist and clinical assistant professor in the Speech-Language-Hearing department at the University of Kansas. She facilitates the clinical team in the Language Acquisition Preschool and the fluency team at the Schiefelbusch clinic. Ana Paula also teaches the graduate Fluency Disorders course at KU and co-leads an adult chapter of the National Stuttering Association. Additionally, she recently co-founded Spero Stuttering, Inc., a nonprofit geared toward advocacy for the stuttering community via the better equipping of SLPs. She is currently pursuing a clinical doctorate in speech-language pathology, with a focus on bilingualism and stuttering. Ana Paula enjoys singing, writing, and traveling with her husband and two kids.
Scott Palisak is a person who can stutter. He is also an Associate Professor at the University Akron, Ohio, who teaches Stuttering, Counseling, and Voice disorders at the graduate level along with supervising future SLPs. Further, he runs the MASS Lab (Mindfulness ACT Social Cognition and Stuttering) at the University of Akron. He also is the co-host and co-creator for The Act To Live Podcast (along with Jaime Michise) and is a partner with the 3C Digital Media Network LLC. Scott is devoted to being an Assistant Faculty member at Camp Shout Out, which is a magical camp for kids who stutter in Michigan. He is a passionate novelist (under the pen name B.D. Scott) and a musician and songwriter since he was 12 years old. He practices mindfulness meditation daily, values health, and appreciates the act of evolving as a person, Speech Language Pathologist and a fellow human in order to build a community and world of kindness and understanding.
Hilda Sønsterud (PhD) is a SLP and clinical researcher living in Oslo, Norway. She works at Statped, Department of speech and language disorders, and she works primarily with treatment and clinical research related to stuttering and cluttering. Hilda is EFS-certified (European Fluency Specialist) and is an active lecturer. She runs workshops within the field of stuttering and cluttering, and she provides clinical practice and supervision for SLP students and SLPs. Her PhD-project “Stuttering therapy; What works for whom?” at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, was grounded in practice-based evidence and in context-sensitive considerations of what makes a difference to a
particular person at a particular time point. Hilda has investigated the therapeutic alliance within stuttering treatment, and she is particularly engaged by how clinical research within the field of fluency disorders are defining evidence. Hilda is a national representative in the International Cluttering Association (ICA).
J. Scott Yaruss, PhD, professor of Communicative Sciences and Disorders at Michigan State University and president of Stuttering Therapy Resources, has published more than 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and more than 250 other works, including the Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering (OASES) and several clinical guides. He has given more than 700 presentations around the world about stuttering and stuttering therapy, as well as 200 additional scientific presentations. He has served on the board of directors of the National Stuttering Association (NSA) and been recognized with the NSA’s Speech-Language Pathologist of the Year and Hall of Fame awards.
