Roundtable

Andrea A.N. McLeod, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of Alberta, Canada, where she is the Chair of the Communication
Sciences and Disorders department. Her research has focused on the speech and language abilities of
bilingual children and adults. She works with local stakeholders to better understand the language
development of multilingual children, to support early language development of refugee children, and to
train clinicians and educators in providing support for these children and their families.

ORCID 0000-0002-4752-9476; Twitter: @AAN_MacLeod; http://www.bilingualacquisition.ca

Catrine Demers practiced as a speech-language pathologist before completing her Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Ottawa. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on collaborative and interdisciplinary knowledge translation of evidence-based practice to support quality and equity of services in education and health care.

Rachel Bouserhal Rachel is a passionate teacher, an inquisitive researcher, an adventurous cyclist and an ardent music lover. She completed her B.S in Electrical Engineering at Michigan State University, where she was heavily involved with Audio Enthusiasts and Engineers, a student group that promotes project based learning environments and holds weekly educational forums on all things related to audio. She got her Master’s from MSU in Electrical Engineering in December 2011 focusing on nonlinear control systems. She moved to Montreal in 2012 and completed her PhD at École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) in 2016. She developed a low-complexity in-ear speech enhancement algorithm and modeled the vocal effort of talkers wearing hearing protection devices. Her in-ear microphone speech enhancement algorithm is patented in the US and has received multiple awards including ÉTS’s most promising invention in 2018 and the Québec Science Invention of the year in 2019. She has been awarded multiple grants including the Erasmus Mundus Auditory Cognitive Network Grant and the Mitacs Elevate postdoctoral grant. Her research interests are signal processing, speech, hearing, machine learning, nonlinear control, and engineering education.

Michel Demuynck holds an engineering degree from the Ecole des Arts et Métiers (ENSAM, France) and a research master’s degree in biomedical engineering (biomechanics specialization) from Paris Descartes University since 2018. Sensitized from a very young age to the fields of engineering and medicine, he has been able to reconcile with his passion for human biomechanics. His industrial experiences, notably as an R&D assistant engineer at Alkom Digital Luxembourg, as well as his thesis project on the modeling of rib cage deformations as a function of lung volume variation, allowed him to acquire his skills in digital modeling, 3D design, data processing, project management and to develop his creativity and perseverance. Motivated by R&D and innovation, he joined the Jérémie Voix team within the CRITIAS industrial research chair at ÉTS to get involved in the « bionic ear » project. Currently a PhD candidate in engineering, Michel’s research work is focused on the modeling of auditory canal deformations resulting from jaw movements.” https://www.linkedin.com/in/michel-demuynck-02274114/

Valérie Giguère has been a speech-language pathologist since October 2018 and practices in a private clinic. Until December 2020, she was a doctoral student in Biomedical Sciences, Speech-Language Pathology option, specializing in people living with Parkinson’s disease. She chose to leave the academic world to devote herself to clinical practice. During her academic career, she worked closely with the community organization Parkinson Quebec with whom she developed content for their website. She is committed to the advocacy of speech-language pathologists and audiologists in Quebec and works on the board of directors of the Association québécoise des orthophonistes et audiologistes (AQOA), first as treasurer and then as vice-president.

Jennifer Polk, Ph.D., is a career coach and expert on PhD careers. She launched From PhD to Life, a career coaching and speaking business, in 2013. She co-founded Beyond the Professoriate in 2014, a business she exited in 2020. Jen writes on graduate education and careers for doctoral-degree holders. She is also a guest speaker on university campuses and at academic and professional conferences throughout North America and beyond. Her University Affairs blog is a three-time gold winner from the Canadian Online Publishing Awards. Jen earned her PhD in history from the University of Toronto.

Follow her on Twitter at @FromPhDtoLife.

Ingrid Verduyckt, Ph. D., associate Professor, School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Université de Montréal;
Regular Researcher, CRIR – Institut universitaire sur la réadaptation en déficience physique de Montréal (IURDPM), Lindsay Pavilion, CIUSSS Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. Ingrid has studied and worked in various academic settings in Sweden, Belgium and, since 2013, in Quebec. Her experiences in structures with varied organizational cultures lead her to question the fabric of implicit rules that students face when they enter the research environment. As director of Lab IV, she is commited to creating spaces of dialogue to make visible and accessible the unwritten rules that govern the academic environment in order to improve the opportunities for students to find their way in an informed manner.