Christopher A. Moore

Meet the Dean of Sargent College

Chris Moore is dean of the College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College and professor in the Department of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences. He also serves as director of BU’s multidisciplinary NIH-sponsored Institutional Training Grant (T32): “Advanced Research Training in Communication Sciences and Disorders.”

Prior to joining BU, his professional appointments included federal service at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), as well as 22 years as an academic researcher.  Dr. Moore served as a Scientific Program Manager in the VA’s Rehabilitation Research and Development Service, administering research programs in vision, audition, tinnitus, balance, and communication disorders. His work at the NIH National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) included administration of research applications in speech, language, voice, swallowing, audition, balance, language, taste, and smell.

Dr. Moore’s faculty appointments have included positions at Wichita State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Washington, where he served as chair of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences as well as program director of an NIH Training Grant.

His research program, which has been supported by more than $5M in federal funding, focuses on the physiologic foundations of speech production, very early motor development of speech, disorders of speech motor control, and customized quantitative methods for measurement and description of speech-related phenomena. His areas of expertise also include orofacial motor control, respiratory physiology, speech acoustics, infant-directed speech (“parentese”), motor development, sound localization, and acoustic and physiologic signal processing. Studies of orofacial motor control completed by Dr. Moore and his colleagues have delved into some of the most fundamental aspects of speech production as a defining human skill. Work by his lab group has appeared in a variety of outlets including the Journal of Neurophysiology, the Journal of Speech-Language-Hearing Research, Child Development, Experimental Neurology, and Brain Research, among others. This research was honored with an Editors’ Award from the Journal of Speech-Language-Hearing Research, and he has been recognized as a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Dr. Moore has served on numerous grant review panels throughout his career, which, coupled with his extensive experience administering federal research, has afforded him with a unique breadth of experience related to grant writing and review. He is a frequent presenter and consultant on topics related to grant writing, research mentoring, and programmatic research development.

He earned a PhD and MA in speech science from Purdue University and a BA with dual majors in chemistry and linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.