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Principal Investigator: Swathi Kiran
Organization: BOSTON UNIVERSITY (CHARLES RIVER CAMPUS)
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $38,878
Funding agency: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
PROJECT ABSTRACT
The annual Academy of Aphasia meeting is the premier conference for researchers in the field of language
processing and aphasia. Since the first meeting in 1963, this international meeting has brought together an
interdisciplinary group of linguists, psychologists, neurologists, and speech-language pathologists to discuss
the latest research in the field of aphasia, including theoretical, clinical, and rehabilitation aspects of this
language disorder. The topics at the conference range widely but almost always cover all aspects of language
processing including phonological processing, lexical-semantic processing, syntactic processing, orthographic
processing, bilingualism, computational modeling, non-invasive and invasive brain imaging, language recovery,
neuroplasticity, and rehabilitation. In this renewal proposal, we continue with two initiatives implemented in the
first cycle of the grant which have been very successful and introduce a third initiative (“Fireside Chats on
equity in science”) to continue to build the research and training caliber of young aphasia researchers.
We continue our first initiative that involves a formal mentoring program for young investigators entering the
field of aphasia research. In this program, selected student/post-doctoral fellows from interdisciplinary
backgrounds who are first authors at the conference are paired with a mentor. This mentor will provide specific
feedback about the mentee’s presentation and general mentorship to the mentee about research and
academic careers. This program has received very positive feedback in the past five years of the grant cycle
with long term benefits for the young researchers. The second initiative we continue will be an hour-long
seminar (New Frontiers in Aphasia Research) that covers the background and approach of a state-of-the-art
methodology, that has an application to the study of aphasia. Given the highly interdisciplinary nature of
aphasia research, these workshops will bridge the communication between aphasia researchers and scientists
and experts who have developed new approaches to study the brain. The third and new initiative will be a
“Fireside Chat on Equity in Science” where each year we discuss aspects of equity in science. Our inaugural
meeting in 2022 started an important discussion on the under-representation and under-citation of publication
from women and minorities in neuroscience/neurology fields. Over the five years, we will invite editors of
journals, reviewers on different funding panels to encourage dialog about how to reduce explicit and implicit
bias in academia and encourage science from underrepresented minorities in the field.
In the last five years, the NIDCD program has changed the fabric and energy at the conference for the better
and has established a process to ensure a pipeline of highly talented and trained scientists pursuing a
research or clinical career with strong foundations in interdisciplinary research on aphasia. This renewal
application continues this important work.
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