Chris Hollar, M.S., CCC-SLP, Lab Manager
Chris is the Language Processes Lab manager and project coordinator of the Toddler Talk Project. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Education and Master’s Degree in Communicative Disorders at UW-Madison. She was employed as a Speech and Language Clinician in the Madison Metropolitan School District prior to joining the lab.
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Amy Esler, Ph.D., Psychologist
Amy performs diagnostic evaluations for autism spectrum disorders and developmental testing for children seen in the EACRC as part of the Toddler Talk Study. She received her doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 2001. Prior to coming to the Waisman Center, Amy was a psychologist and research specialist at the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center (UMACC), where she worked on several research projects on ASD, including studies of early diagnosis of ASD in toddlers. As Training Coordinator at UMACC, she conducted trainings on 2 autism diagnostic measures, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) and the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R). She assisted in developing a toddler version of the ADOS, which is in the final stages of validation. Both the ADOS and the ADI-R are used as part of the diagnostic evaluations in the EACRC.
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Courtney Karasinski, M.A., CCC-SLP, Ph.D. Student
Department of Communicative Disorders
Courtney is a first year doctoral student in Communicative Disorders. She earned her B.S. in Speech Pathology in 1998 from Illinois State University and earned her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology in 2000 from Western Michigan University. She is currently an ASHA-certified Speech-Language Pathologist and has worked in hospitals and schools for six years. At the 2006 ASHA Schools Conference Courtney presented a poster titled “The Kindergarten Early Education Program”. Her current research interests lie in language disorders in children.
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Elizabeth Roos, M.A., CCC-SLP, Ph.D. Student
Department of Communicative Disorders
Beth is a third year doctoral student in the Department of Communicative Disorders. Her primary interest is early word learning in typical and disordered populations. She earned her B.S. in Communicative Disorders in 1994 from Northwestern University and her M.A. in Communicative Sciences and Disorders in 1996 from the University of Texas at Austin. Before enrolling in the doctoral program at the UW in 2004, Beth worked as an ASHA-certified pediatric speech-language pathologist within community-based early intervention and university clinical settings. She considers her eight years of clinical experience working with preschoolers with speech and language disorders a major impetus behind her decision to pursue a career in research.
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Heather Geye, M.S., Ph.D. Student
Department of Psychology
Heather is a sixth year doctoral student investigating the early language profiles of young children on
the autism spectrum. In addition, she is interested in examining the role of oral-motor and manual-motor programming impairments on the development of expressive language, gesture, and other nonverbal communicative behaviors in children on the autism spectrum. Heather received her B.A. in Psychology (Summa Cum Laude) in 1995 from Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, and her M.S. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003.
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Sojung Oh, M.S., Ph.D Student
Department of Communicative Disorders
Sojung is a first year year doctoral student in Communicative Disorders. She earned her B.A in Korean Language and Literature and her M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology both from Ewha Womens University in Seoul, Korea. Her work experience includes the Seoul Community Welfare Center, and the Children's Center for Developmental Support in Ewha's Women's University. Sojung's current interests are in child language disorders (language processing), second language acquisition with a neurodevelopmental approach.
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Molly O'Shea, B.A.,Graduate Student
Department of Communicative Disorders
Molly is a second year Speech-Language Pathology graduate student in the department of Communicative Disorders. She received her undergraduate degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder in Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences as well as Spanish. Molly is interested in working with children with developmental disabilities as well as children who are deaf and hard of hearing and Spanish-speaking bilingual children.
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Katrina Garvens, B.A., Graduate Student
Department of Communicative Disorders
Katrina is a first year Speech-Language Pathology graduate student in the department of Communicative Disorders. She received her B.A. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois in the spring of 2006. Katrina recently spent 10 weeks in Ghana, West Africa researching services provided for children with non-physical disabilities and presented her findings at the 2006 ASHA Convention. Additional interests include language development, the autism spectrum, and cross-cultural and international issues in communicative disorders.
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Amy Boerneke, Undergraduate
Department of Communicative Disorders
Amy is a junior this year in the Department of Communicative Disorders. She hopes to work one day with children in an educational setting. She has just recently started working in the lab in the fall of 2006 with her main duty being the coding and SALT transcription of language samples.
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Laurie Eisenband, Undergraduate
Department of Communicative Disorders and Psychology
Laurie is a senior in the honors program studying Communicative Disorders and Psychology. She has been working for the language processes lab since the Spring semester of 2005.
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Amelia Faber, Undergraduate
Department of Psychology
Amelia is a senior majoring Psychology and will graduate in May, 2007. She plans to attend graduate school in communicative disorders.
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Britny Gabert, Undergraduate
Department of Psychology
Britny is a junior studying psychology and has been working for the lab since Fall 2006. Her current projects in the lab include coding behavioral samples and CDI scanning.
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Jordan Scheid, Undergraduate
Department of Communicative Disorders
Jordan is a junior studying in the Department of Communicative Disorders. She has been working in the lab since September, 2005. In the future she hopes to be an early-childhood Speech-Language Pathologist with a concentration in intervention. Jordan's main duties in the lab include digitizing and creating video files, data entry, and visit preparations.
