Research in HSLS

Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences programs conduct extensive research on communication access for deaf and hard of hearing people. The programs have a long history of external research supports from federal agencies and private foundations, including the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health. Each faculty member is conducting one or more research projects.

Students have ample opportunities to take part in the research. AuD students (and SLP students who choose the thesis option) conduct a research project under the guidance of a faculty advisor and fulfill the research capstone requirement for graduation. Ph.D. students typically complete a thorough, in-depth research project and are encouraged to take an opportunity to present outcomes in a nationally recognizable conference or publish in a peer-reviewed journal before completing the dissertation.

Students have an opportunity to work with faculty members as research assistants, typically up to 10 hours per week (for SLP/AuD students) or 20 hours per week (for Ph.D. students).

Ongoing Externally Funded Project

Deaf/Hard of Hearing Technology Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC): The center works to improve accessibility, usability, and performance of technology for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. Department investigators: David Thornton and Claire Bernstein.

Faculty Research Labs and Projects

• B/B Aural Rehabilitation Lab – Claire Bernstein and Diane Brewer
• Developmental Neurolinguistic and Cognition (DNC)Lab – Karen Garrido-Nag
• Electrophysiology of Language Foundations – Jared Carter
• Futures Articulated through Belonging, Languaging, & Expression Lab – Farha Najah Hussain 
• HearHub: Where hearing effort meets real-world hearing science – Shubhaganga Dhrruvakumar
• Signed Language Development, Disorders, and Deprivation (SL3D) Lab – James McCann
• The Nexus Lab: Where Communication Science Meets Innovation – Rakesh Veerabhadrappa
• Multicultural Research Lab – Ishara Ramkissoon
• Prosody in Language Understanding, Speech, and Hearing (PLUSH) Lab – Kara Hawthorne
• Vestibular and Balance Lab – Chizuko Tamaki