Sargent Faculty Honored by American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Swathi Kiran, the James and Cecilia Tse Ying Professor in Neurorehabilitation, and Clinical Professor Elizabeth Hoover have been recognized by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) for their contributions to the professions of speech-language pathology and speech & hearing science.

Kiran received the Honors of the Association, the highest award ASHA bestows, for her distinguished contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders. This award recognizes individuals whose contributions have been of such excellence that they have enhanced or altered the course of the professions.

Director of the BU Center for Brain Recovery and the BU Aphasia Research Lab, Kiran studies language processing and communication following brain injury. She specializes in treatment for individuals with aphasia – the loss of language after a traumatic brain injury (TBI) – as well as bilingual aphasia and neuroimaging of brain plasticity following stroke. Kiran is the co-founder and scientific advisor for Constant Therapy, which offers personalized web-based rehabilitation tools for brain injury survivors. She has written more than 100 scientific publications in areas including cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, rehabilitation, and bilingualism, and she served on former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s brain injury task force. She has previously been honored by ASHA with the Mentor, Advancement of Academic and Research Career Award (AARC) in 2007 and the Advancement of Academic and Research Career Award (AARC) in 2005, and in 2013, she was named a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Hoover was honored with the Fellowship of the Association, bestowed in recognition of outstanding contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders. The status of Fellow is retained for life and is one of the highest honors ASHA can bestow

Director of the Aphasia Resource Center, Hoover’s clinical specialties include adult neurogenic communication and swallowing disorders with a special emphasis on stroke, traumatic brain injury and Parkinson’s disease. Her research focuses on treatment approaches for aphasia using the Life Participation Approach for Aphasia (LPAA) framework and includes conversation-based treatment for people with aphasia. Her research findings have led to advancements in clinical care which have been recognized at both the national and international levels. She was previously awarded the the Gerry Cormier Communicative Access Award from the Aphasia Institute in 2021 and the Tavistock Trust for Aphasia Distinguished Scholar Award in 2024.

Kiran and Hoover will be formally recognized at the 2024 ASHA Convention in Seattle this December.