MILWAUKEE — Dr. Jenya Iuzzini-Seigel, assistant professor of speech pathology and audiology in the College of Health Sciences at Marquette University, is a 2020 recipient of the Way Klingler Young Scholar Award.
Iuzzini-Seigel joined Marquette in 2015. Since then, she has made great contributions to the College of Health Sciences.
Her research focuses on the different diagnoses and treatments of communication differences and disorders in children. She is mainly interested in childhood apraxia of speech, an uncommon speech disorder in which a child has difficulty making accurate movements when speaking.
“Dr. Iuzzini-Seigel’s studies may lead to better early intervention and more targeted treatment for this population of children. I believe strongly in her research direction,” Dr. William E. Cullinan, dean of the College of Health Sciences, said.
Iuzzini-Seigel is director of the Communication, Movement, and Learning Lab where she aims to identify factors that contribute to disorder onset and resolution for children with communication disorders. The courses she teaches include Introduction to Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology; Voice Disorders; and Research Methodology.
The Way Klingler Young Scholar Award supports promising young scholars in critical stages of their careers. The awards are intended to fund $2,000 in operating costs and to cover a portion of salary to afford the recipient a one-semester release from teaching.
Iuzzini-Seigel’s semester long research plan involves collecting and analyzing speech, language, movement and procedural learning data on children with seizure disorders to conduct careful phenotyping of speech characteristics in this population. She also plans to draft a R21 proposal for research that would develop a phone app to assess the procedural learning ability in children. Lastly, Iuzzini-Seigel plans to prepare two manuscripts: Procedural learning in children with CAS and speech delay and Motor Entrainment Treatment in children with CAS.