About the Lab

The iHOPE Stuttering Lab is a virtual research environment dedicated to understanding stuttering not as a speech phenomenon to be corrected, but as a lived human experience to be understood. Grounded in the ICF framework, person-centered values, and the HOPE framework, the lab investigates how environments, relationships, and internal resources shape the way people who stutter navigate participation in everyday life.

Using immersive AI-driven simulation and digital research methodologies, the lab creates ecologically valid speaking environments and studies how people who stutter experience, respond to, and make meaning from those moments.

The lab is distinguished by its commitment to people who stutter as co-investigators, not merely research subjects, and by its integration of spiritual and existential dimensions of stuttering experience into a rigorous empirical research agenda.

I serve as the Clinical Program Director for Baylor University's Online Communication Sciences and Disorders graduate program, where I develop clinical education systems that produce practice-ready clinicians, protect standards, and support the people doing the work. That means building the infrastructure behind strong training: clinical site partnerships, educator development, competency-based evaluation, supervision frameworks, quality assurance, and accreditation alignment. I lead and mentor clinical faculty and staff with a focus on scalable systems, clear expectations, consistent feedback, and measurable growth.

As a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE), I use simulation and intentional feedback to sharpen clinical reasoning, communication, professionalism, and reflective practice. I am drawn to leadership that improves workforce readiness and strengthens training from the inside out. I have also pursued formal training in Generative AI for Leaders and AI in Healthcare. For me, responsible innovation in clinical education means building smarter systems that scale, remain ethical, and raise the quality of learner feedback and evaluation.

My clinical roots are in stuttering. I work to ensure clinicians are prepared to serve people who stutter with both clinical skill and genuine counseling presence.

As a Certified Clinical Adventure Therapist (CCAT), I founded AdventureSLP to build community with people who stutter through advocacy, growth, and outdoor experiences like fly fishing. Confidence grows through safe challenge, strong support, and meaningful connection.

The through line across all of this work is the same: build systems and spaces where people are challenged well, supported fully, equipped to do meaningful work, and live their best life.