Faculty
Our Communicative Disorders and Sciences Department is home to very dedicated and experienced faculty members. Information regarding the faculty members and their research can be found below:
Department Chair
Nidhi Mahendra, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
- Professor and Director, Spartan Aphasia Research Clinic (SPARC)
- nidhi.mahendra@sjsu.edu
- Sweeney Hall (SH) 115
- Twitter: @NidhiMahendra
Graduate Program Director
Wendy Quach, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
- Professor
- wendy.quach@sjsu.edu
- Twitter: @wq_aac
- Wendy's Spotify playlist
Director of Clinical Education
Cynthia Van Laar, M.A., CCC-SLP
Undergraduate Program Coordinator
Marcella McCollum, Ed.D., CCC-SLP
- Assistant Professor
- marcella.mccollum@sjsu.edu
- Twitter: @M_McCollum
- Marcella's Spotify playlist
Faculty Directory
Bopanna Ballachanda, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Lecturer
Email coming soon
Paul W. Cascella, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
- Professor
- paul.cascella@sjsu.edu
Kathleen Castillo, M.A., CCC-SLP
- Lecturer
- kathleen.castillo@sjsu.edu
Megan Cuellar, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
- Assistant Professor
- megan.cuellar@sjsu.edu
Danielle DeWitt, MA., CCC-SLP
- Lecturer
- danielle.thissell@sjsu.edu
Eduardo Europa, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
- Assistant Professor
- eduardo.europa@sjsu.edu
Dawn Greenberg, M.S., CCC-SLP
- Lecturer
- dawn.greemberg@sjsu.edu
Joseph Hinz, Au.D., CCC-A
Lecturer
Email coming soon
Reiko Kataoka, Ph.D.
- Lecturer
- reiko.kataoka@sjsu.edu
June McCullough, Ph.D., CCC-A
- Professor
- june.mccullough@sjsu.edu
Erin Nokes, AuD., CCC-A
- Lecturer
- erin.nokes@sjsu.edu
Amanda Olson, M.S., CCC-SLP
- Lecturer
- amanda.c.olson@sjsu.edu
Alison Pentland, M.A., CCC-SLP
- Lecturer
- alison.pentland@sjsu.edu
Lupe Ramirez-Steele, M.A., CCC-SLP
- Lecturer
- lupe.ramirez-steele@sjsu.edu
Anita Schaack, M.S., CCC-SLP
- Lecturer
- anita.schaack@sjsu.edu
Pei-Tzu Tsai, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
- Associate Professor
- NSSLHA Advisor
- peitzu.tsai@sjsu.edu
- Peitzu's Spotify playlist
Carol Zepecki, Ed.D., CCC-SLP
- Lecturer
- carol.zepecki@sjsu.edu
Emeritus Faculty
Jean Novak, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Evelyn Merritt, M.A., CCC-A
Lecturer
evelyn.merritt@sjsu.edu
Michael Kimbarow, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Henriette Langdon, Ed.D., F-CCC-SLP
- Professor Emeritus
- henriette.langdon@sjsu.edu
Gloria Weddington, Ph.D., F-CCC-SLP
Recent Faculty Highlights
Dr. Nidhi Mahendra was the guest editor for and published "Racism, Equity and Inclusion in Communication Sciences and Disorders: Reflections and the Road Ahead" in Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders: Beyond Cultural Competence: Addressing Racism, Equity and Inclusion.
Marcella McCollum was featured in the SJSU story "Transforming the Way We Teach" which focused on many of our Lurie College of Education's Strategic Plan initiatives, including our Transformative Leadership Minor that Marcella coordinates.
“We need to think about changing paradigms,” says McCollum. “We cannot just offer a class or textbook that tells you how to overcome the challenges that exist in our current educational systems as they are designed. We want students to question why things are the way they are. We want them to have the tools, so they can push back when something looks unjust.”
Dr. Peitzu Tsai co-published "Voice-related Experiences of Nonbinary Individuals" in the Journal of Voice with recent alumni Grace Shefcik, who also received the SJSU Outstanding Thesis Award for the 2020-2021 academic year.
Dr. Megan Cuellar co-published "Objective measures of lingual and jaw function in healthy adults and persons with Parkinson’s disease: Implications for swallowing" in Physiology and Behavior and co-published "Objective physiological measures of lingual and jaw function in healthy individuals and individuals with dysphagia due to neurodegenerative diseases" in MethodsX.
Dr. Lyle Lustigman published "Early collaborations: Adult-Child and child-adult co-construction of ‘but’-clauses" in Interactional Linguistics and copublished "Levels of Integration in Children's Early Clause Combining in Hebrew" in Language Learning and Development.
Dr. Nidhi Mahendra copublished "Advancing Justice, Equity in the Pipeline to the Professions: Reconfiguring graduate training program admissions is key to foundational change" on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Leader newsmagazine.
Watch our faculty Dr. Lyle Lustigman and Dr. Nidhi Mahendra presented their research related to diversity, social justice and culturally sustaining pedagogy at the Spring 2021 Lurie College of Education Faculty Research Symposium.
- 2:52 – Lyle Lustigman, PhD – Assistant Professor, Communicative Disorders and Sciences – “‘And what were you doing?’ ‘Helping!’ Adult scaffolding in children’s early language development”
- 26:24 – Nidhi Mahendra PhD – Associate Professor, Communicative Disorders and Sciences – “Spartan Aphasia Research Clinic (SPARC): Where aphasia research, clinical service delivery, and student training meet”
Dr. Wendy Quach copublished "Assessment of adults with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis who need augmentative and alternative communication: Clinical decisions of AAC specialists" in Communication Disorders Quarterly and co-presented "Emergency preparedness for individuals who use augmentative and alternative communication: Reviewing a Text Message Toolkit" at the ISAAC Connect Conference.
Faculty Employment
If you are a clinician with 5+ years of experience and are looking for an opportunity to work with undergraduate and graduate students, please consider joining our department. Complete our LCDS Lecturer and Supervisor Contact Google form and someone from the CDS Department will contact you.
We are particularly interested in applicants who have experience working with students from diverse backgrounds and a demonstrated commitment to improving access to higher education for under-represented groups.
Positions are subject to employment verification, education verification, reference checks and criminal record checks. A background check (including the criminal records check) must be completed satisfactorily before any candidate can be offered a position with the CSU. Failure to satisfactorily complete the background check may affect the application status of applicants or continued employment of current CSU employees who apply for the position.
