Kangaroos at The Treehouse

The kangaroos have come onto campus for spring. We even had two hop by The Treehouse this week!

Welcome to CVC Felicity

It was wonderful to host Felicity Laurence, my PhD student at The Treehouse in Bathurst this week. The kangaroos all came onto campus to meet with her. We were able to meet with Dr Audrey Wang, Dr Nicola Ivory,  Emma Hayes and Emma Scanlon in person and Sarah Verdon online during the very productive week. Felicity also won a CSU cap during the student promotion of RUOK? day!

Kangaroo walk on Country to start CVC2026

 CVC affiliates gathered at the Kangaroo Walk behind CSU to spend an hour acknowledging the traditional custodians and Wiradjuri land as the first event of CVC2026. Over 100 local kangaroos were there to greet us.

 

CVC visiting scholar Dr Zinnia Mevawalla: Kangaroos and sunsets

Our visiting scholar Dr Zinnia Mevawalla, joined A/Prof Kathy Cologon and myself to meet the CSU kangaroos and enjoy the sunset over Bathurst. It was a perfect rural Australian moment during her visit.

There were too many kangaroos to count!

We saw the rare albino kangaroo on Mt Panorama!

 

Welcome Wiebke Freese, visiting CVC from Germany

Welcome to Wiebke Freese who is a PhD student at the University of Lubeck (Universität zu Lübeck), Germany who is visiting the Children's Voices Centre and The Treehouse on the Bathurst campus of Charles Sturt University. It is a joy to host her. 

Wiebke's supervisor is Prof Annette Fox-Boyer - a long-term colleague who has taught me a lot about German children's speech. Interestingly, Dr Sarah Masso, my previous PhD student undertook her postdoctoral scholarship with Annette a few years ago. Last time I saw Wiebke and Annette was at the ICPLA conference in Patras Greece.

 

A/Prof Tamara Cumming, Wiebke Freese and Prof Sharynne McLeod at the Children's Voices Centre

 

Weibke has been welcomed by CSU kangaroos, beautiful skies, and friendly colleagues.

Welcome Wiebke

Kangaroos on CSU's Bathurst campus

Sunset on Wiebke's first night in Bathurst

Bathurst's Machattie Park

Wiebke in The Beehive at The Treehouse

Wiebke's bee-inspired gifts for The Treehouse

2025 ASHFoundation 5K Walk/Run

Today Prof Lynn Williams and I walked for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation Annual 5K Walk/Run (https://www.ashfoundation.org/). Lynn registered us for the event - and we enjoyed sharing the walk with our husbands, friends, and over 80 kangaroos! 

2025 ASHFoundation Virtual 5K Walk/Run - 14 September 2025

Registration is now open for the ASHFoundation’s 6th Annual Virtual 5K, taking place September 12–14, 2025. Walk, run, or roll from wherever you are—and on your own schedule—to support innovation in communication sciences and disorders. Participate as an individual or form a team. Every step you take helps fund research grants, scholarships, and new breakthroughs in speech, language, and hearing. Join a movement that’s making a difference across the country and around the world. 

Wattle

Sharynne  with Prof Lynn Williams

Hello kangaroos!

There have been a lot of kangaroos on campus lately. Today a very large kangaroo was outside my office window. 

A large kangaroo outside my office window

 

Hello kangaroos - what a lovely welcome to work

 This morning six kangaroos welcomed me to work! 

Olebeng's visit to Bathurst

It was my pleasure to host Dr Olebeng Mahura in Bathurst this weekend. I first met Olebeng at the ICPLA conference in 2016 in Halifax, Canada. We have kept in touch - and Olebeng co-authored four chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World that I edited. 

• Setswana speech development
• Xhosa/isiXhosa speech development
• Zulu/isiZulu speech development
• English (South African) speech development.

It was great to show her around Charles Sturt University and Bathurst.

Olebeng saw 144 kangaroos at CSU and Mt Panorama
including the rare albino and a wallaby

Olebeng visiting the TRex in the Fossil and Mineral Museum

Sharynne and Olebeng next to the replica of the
largest gold nugget ever found in the world (near Bathurst)

Olebeng in my office at CSU

Olebeng visited The Treehouse

Olebeng is working on a website - SpeechOn - to provide resources in indigenous African languages (Setswana, isiZulu, isiXhosa).

SpeechOn: https://www.speechon.co/about

A/Prof Jon Preston's visit to CSU Bathurst

A/Prof Jonathan Preston has visited Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst over the past 2 days.  He generously agreed to meet local speech-language pathologists and present a seminar (face-to-face and virtually) regarding his research using ultrasound with children with speech sound disorders.
The seminar was titled "Updates on Ultrasound Biofeedback for the Treatment of Speech Sound Disorders"

Emily Davis, Angela Roberts, Sharynne McLeod, Jon Preston, Lauren after Jon's presentation

Sharynne and Jon comparing notes about electropalatography and ultrasound

Jon also met many of CSU's kangaroos (130 to be exact!).

Jon's trip began navigating the complexities of the Australian rail transport system that has been significantly affected by the bushfires then floods. Here is what I texted to him as he was on his way to Bathurst

I’m really pleased you are going to experience Australia today. As you travel, think about our big country, small population, and the continuing challenges of fires, floods, drought etc. Then look at the map of the whole of Australia and notice that Bathurst actually is extremely close to Sydney - in fact on a number of measures we are not even considered to be “rural” and we definitely are not “remote”. Then overlay those thoughts with being a family with communication disorders/other issues...