Sarah Dugan, PhD, CCC-SLP

In my research career, I have been interested in providing clinically-useful technologies and approaches that move bidirectionally from “bench to bedside” by collaborating with interdisciplinary and interprofessional practice teams. To solve the problem of outdated, siloed, or ill-fitting clinical tools, I have developed technologies and approaches that result in expanded treatment possibilities while prioritizing speech-language pathology (SLP) perspectives. These approaches include the first gamified ultrasound visual feedback treatment system involving SLPs from concept to clinical trial, tutorials for practitioners (from design to physical therapy) in how to involve SLPs in collaborative science, and the first implementation science studies on ultrasound for speech treatment in K-12 schools. My work involves mixed-methods surveys that identify emergent clinical needs, novel quantitative and machine learning analysis that characterize movement patterns, and I design and deploy SLP-informed clinical research tools.