Writing together on different sides of the world

While Dr Sarah Masso has been in Canada on her Endeavour Scholarship, we have been able to continue writing together. We have submitted a book chapter and finalised some journal articles based on data from the Sound Start Study. Here is the information about our invited book chapter:

• McLeod, S. & Masso, S. (2017, submitted). Speech sound disorders in children. In J. S. Horst & J. von Koss Torkildsen (Eds.). International handbook of language development. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Writing with Sarah Masso via Skype on different sides of the world

Also, I have been writing with Dr Kate Crowe who is now working at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York State. Our most recent task has to finalise revisions of a manuscript. It is great to continue writing with these scholars and colleagues.

Kate wearing her gift from my PhD students' recent visit to ASHA in LA

Sarah M's Endeavour Postdoctoral Scholarship in Newfoundland, Canada

Sarah Masso is currently in Newfoundland, Canada on her Endeavour Postdoctoral Scholarship. She is working with A/Prof Yvan Rose at Memorial University of Newfoundland for 4 months. Her project is titled: Developing innovative technology for speech pathologists. Here are her aims:

This Endeavour postdoctoral program will make the comprehensive analysis software (Phon) available for speech pathologists to save them time, money, and resources. A user-friendly interface for Phon will reduce technology barriers hindering speech pathologists’ engagement with this technology. The two key aims for this research are to work with Associate Professor Yvan Rose (linguist and Phon author) to: (1) design an interface for Phon appropriate for speech pathologists internationally, (2) incorporate clinically-useful features, including the Word-level Analysis of Polysyllables (Masso, 2016), within Phon.

Sarah's first day

Sarah picked local blueberries

Jellybean houses

CSU media release: Prestigious fellowship for CSU PhD researcher

CSU has just published a media release regarding Sarah Masso's Endeavour Research Fellowship.
http://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/education/ripple/prestigious-fellowship-for-csu-phd-researcher
The news has been shared and tweeted throughout the world. Congratulations again Sarah!

Endeavour Research Fellowship awarded to Sarah M

Congratulations to Sarah Masso who has been awarded an Endeavour Research Fellowship for 2017. The list of 2017 award winners is here.
Sarah will be going  to Memorial University of Newfoundland,  Canada to work with Associate Professor Yvan Rose and Dr Greg Hedlund and the team to help them build a user-friendly interface for Phon. Sarah met with Yvan and Greg in Canada a few months ago at the ICPLA conference (here).

Phon is an innovative and comprehensive open-source analysis software that has been developed for linguists and is free (Rose et al., 2006). Phon has received funding from a number of sources including R01 funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Phon is currently used in phonetics and speech pathology research and has nine language dictionaries (Rose & Stoel-Gammon, 2015).

Sarah is the third of my students to be awarded an Endeavour Scholarship/Fellowship (see blog posts here). Suzanne Hopf is currently on an Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship in Fiji. Sarah Verdon was also awarded an Endeavour Research Fellowship after her PhD, but had to decline the offer. The opportunities provided by the Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships are outstanding, enabling international collaborations that can make a big difference to professional practice and children's lives.

Endeavour Scholarship and Fellowship Dinner

Last night Suzanne Hopf was awarded her Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship at the awards dinner held at the National Gallery in Canberra. During the night we learned that there were over 4,100 applicants for the awards in 2014 and there were only 27 Australian recipients within Suzanne's category. At our table we dined with the Secretary of the Fiji High Commission and the Managing Director of the company that coordinates the Endeavour Awards. The Endeavour Research Fellowship winners (including my other PhD student Sarah Verdon) were celebrated, but not part of the dinner. More details about Suzanne and Sarah's awards are here.The Endeavour Bulletin (Dec 2014) included Suzanne's photo here.

Suzanne receiving her award

Suzanne surrounded by her proud supervisor and proud mother at the National Gallery!

Australia Awards Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship and Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Today Suzanne Hopf learned that she has received an Australia Awards Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship for her research titled: “Supporting Fijian children's speech, language and literacy”. It was great to be in Fiji working with Suzanne when she received the news. 

Moments later, Sarah Verdon learned that she has received an Australia Awards Endeavour Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for her research titled: "A community-based approach to supporting Fijian children's communication development".

Suzanne and I celebrated the news in Fiji in Fijian style with fresh coconut juice.

Details of the awards are here
Details of all of the scholarship winners are here
The CSU media release is here
The brief story in the Fiji Times is here 
A long story in the Western Advocate is here

Sharynne and Suzanne celebrating the news in Nadi, Fiji