New head of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences named

Marion Underwood, dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences, addressed faculty and staff about the appointment of the new head of the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Purdue University.

I am pleased to announce that Professor Preeti M. Sivasankar will be the next head of the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS), effective July 1, 2019. She will be preceded by Keith Kluender who has served as head of SLHS since January 2012, and will remain on the faculty.  I am grateful to Keith for his exceptional leadership of SLHS. He was instrumental in establishing a new home for the Department in Lyles-Porter Hall and has done an outstanding job of building a strong Department that boasts an impressive graduate program. The speech-language pathology program ranks 5th and the audiology program ranks 13th.

Professor Sivasankar came to Purdue in 2005. In addition to her appointment in SLHS, she holds courtesy appointments in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and the Indiana University School of Medicine-West Lafayette Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery. She has served as associate head of SLHS since 2017, and was interim head of SLHS during fall 2018.

Her research focuses on voice production and laryngeal physiology and is funded by the National Institutes of Health. She has been recognized with a Fellowship of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and as a Purdue University Faculty Scholar. Professor Sivasankar is active in mentoring graduate and undergraduate students and is a recipient of the SLHS Outstanding Undergraduate Instructor Award and HHS’ Jane S. Link Outstanding Teaching Award. She is a Fellow of the CIC (Big 10 Alliance) Academic Leadership Program and a Purdue University HHS Dean’s Fellow.

I’d like to thank Doran French, professor and head of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, for leading the search. I very much appreciate his work and that of the search committee.

I am delighted that Professor Sivasankar has accepted this role. She brings a wonderfully open, transparent, energetic style of leadership, an excellent scholarly record, and deep respect for the importance of training excellent clinicians. Please join me in congratulating her as the next head of the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences.

Sincerely,

Marion K. Underwood, Ph.D.