Alumni

PhD Alumni

Jessica Richardson Berry graduated with her Ph.D. in 2015. Her dissertation was titled, Use of Copula and Auxiliary BE by African American Children with Gullah/Geechee Heritage. She is currently an Assistant Professor, Graduate Coordinator, and Department Chair at South Carolina State University. Email: jrichard@scsu.edu

Maria Jose Bosanko graduated with her Ph.D. in 2023. Her dissertation was titled, A Descriptive Study of Screening Practices and Outcomes of Bilingual Spanish/English Children.

Lesli Cleveland graduated with her Ph.D. in 2009. Her dissertation was titled, Verbal -S in Children with and without SLI across Dialects. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Communication Disorders at Eastern Washington University. Email: lcleveland@ewu.edu

April Garrity graduated from LSU with her Ph.D. in 2007. Her dissertation was titled, BE Use in African American English Speakers as a Function of Language Ability. She is currently a Professor in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department at Georgia Southern University. Email: agarrity@georgiasouthern.edu

 Kyomi Gregory graduated from LSU with her Ph.D. in 2015. Her dissertation was titled, Evaluation of Teacher Ratings to Improve Child Language Screenings in Speech-Language Pathology. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Pace University in New York. Email: kgregory@pace.edu

Christy Wynn Moland graduated with her Ph.D. in 2011. Her dissertation was titled, Comparison of the DELV:ST to Two other Screeners for African American Children. She is currently the Project Manager for the D4 Child Language Lab at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and an Adjunct Instructor at Xavier Unversity of Louisiana . Email: cmoland1@lsu.edu.

Lekeitha Hartfield Morris graduated with her Ph.D. in 2010. Her dissertation was titled, Behaviors and Beliefs of African American Caregivers as Related to their Children’s Language-Literacy Development. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at Lamar University in Texas. Email: lmorris6@lamar.edu

  

Brandi Newkirk-Turner graduated with her Ph.D. in 2010. Her dissertation was titled, The Auxiliary System of Children who Speak African American English. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders and Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at Jackson State University in Mississippi. Email: brandi.l.newkirk@jsums.edu

Sonja Pruitt-Lord graduated with her Ph.D. in 2006. Her dissertation was titled, Grammatical Morphology of Children Reared in Poverty: Implications for Specific Language Impairment. She is currently a Professor in the School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at San Diego State University. Email: spruitt@mail.sdsu.edu

Karmen L. Porter graduated with her Ph.D. in 2015. Her dissertation was titled, Caregiver perceptions of speech-language pathologist (SLPs) communication: Examining how SLPs talk with caregivers about child language disorders. She is currently an Assistant Professor and the Chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. Email: klporter@fhsu.edu

Andrew “Andy-Rooney” Rivière graduated with his Ph.D. in 2016. His dissertation was titled, VA-ET-VIENT, The Goin’ and Comin’ of Infinitival TO: A Study of Children with and without Specific Language Impairment in Cajun English. He is currently working as a Speech-Language Pathologist in DC. Email: andrew.riviere@gmail.com

 Christy Seidel earned a Ph.D. in Psychology in 2013 and a MA in 2015 in Communication Sciences and Disorders. She worked in the lab for 5 years while completing her studies. Her dissertation was titled, Creating an SLI Performance Profile with Load. She is currently working as a Speech-Language Pathologist in Louisiana. Email: seidel.christy@gmail.com

Lori Vaughn earned a Ph.D. in 2022. Her disseration was titled, African American English-Speaking Children's Judgments of Grammaticality: Effects of Clinical Status and Grammatical Structures. She is the owner of Speech by Design, LLC. Email: Speechbydesign@yahoo.com

MA Alumni

My name is Destiny Cooper. I am a second-year MA student at Louisiana State University from a small town named Shuqualak, MS. I am currently pursuing a degree in COMD. I aspire to focus my practice on fluency disorders in children and adults. I am ecstatic about working with Dr. Oetting and the entire team to explore the many aspects of language development. dcoop41@lsu.edu

Juliette DiCharia is from Slidell, LA and currently enrolled in LSU's COMD MA program. She will be graduating in Spring 2024 with her Masters' degree. During her undergraduate time at LSU, she worked in Dr. Oetting's lab. She is excited to work with a new team this year as a Research Assistant. jdicha7@lsu.edu