Cassandra Lopéz, a second-year PhD student, is working to improve hearing assessment for Spanish-speaking communities and the clinicians who serve them.
“Having experienced the challenges of limited bilingual resources both as a clinician and as a child of a monolingual Spanish speaker, I am deeply motivated to address this gap,” said Lopéz.
She has spent years working with Lauren Calandruccio in the Speech and Auditory Research Lab (SpAR Lab) studying multilingual speech perception.
Lopéz first joined SpAR Lab as an undergraduate research assistant during her second semester at CWRU. An upperclassman from the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA), encouraged her to join the lab to support multilingual speech-recognition testing.
While pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Sciences and Psychology, Lopéz worked in the lab facilitating a study in Spanish language processing, which involved scheduling Spanish-speaking participants, administering hearing screenings, carrying out data collection, and scoring participant responses.
Lopéz went on to earn her Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology on a bilingual track at Indiana University in Bloomington before returning to CWRU to pursue her doctoral degree. Now a second-year PhD student, Lopéz has rejoined the SpAR Lab and is leading a project that aims to develop speech-recognition materials in Spanish—an adaptation of the current Basic English Lexicon corpus used in speech-recognition testing. Notably, Lopéz’s project integrates artificial intelligence to optimize the translation process, while also engaging Spanish-speaking undergraduate students in evaluating and refining the translations.
Through this project, Lopéz project aims to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate materials in Spanish for assessing Spanish-English bilingual individuals and monolingual Spanish speakers.
Lopéz is also involved in supporting undergraduate members in their graduate school applications. Indeed, the tradition of supporting underclass students has long been a hallmark at the SpAR Lab – where Lopéz, once a recipient eight years ago, is now the mentor.
To improve accessibility to bilingual speech and hearing services, Lopéz founded the Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) Bilingϋe Suite, a student-led organization. The CSD Bilingϋe Suite has received support from the Graduate Student Council through The Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Endeavors (GSSCE) grant at CWRU and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Research grant.
“Our mission is to celebrate diversity, equity, and belonging by cultivating an inviting and respectful environment within the Communication Sciences and Disorders field.” Lopéz shared. “We aim to achieve this mission by preparing the next generation of bilingual clinicians to deliver culturally and linguistically responsive care.”
Can you share with us about your role in SpAR Lab as a PhD student?
As the only PhD student working in the lab, my responsibilities entail mentoring undergraduate research assistants, running lab meetings, and leading specific research projects. This includes meeting with students to answer any questions regarding research tasks or graduate school preparation. Dr. Lauren Calandruccio has granted me the opportunity to run lab meetings, so I run a 7-step meeting process every week with all research assistants to obtain updates on progress, challenges, questions, or concerns related to lab projects.
As a researcher in training, I run projects particularly focused on Spanish speech-recognition testing. Using my clinical training in bilingual speech-language pathology and native Spanish native skills, I work with a team of Spanish heritage speakers to design culturally and linguistically appropriate materials that could be used to assess hearing for Spanish-English or monolingual Spanish speakers during speech-recognition testing in an audiology clinic.
How has CWRU helped support your research?
While at CWRU, I have had a number of opportunities to advance and present my research with others.
I have participated in the Two-Minute Pitch Poster and Three-Minute Thesis events to share my research with a broader audience. I see these events as opportunities to engage with individuals outside of the fields of speech-language pathology and audiology. It challenges me to present and explain my research in accessible ways.
Additionally, this year, I was selected as a T32 Predoctoral Trainee through the School of Medicine’s Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC). Through the T32 Mentored Research program, I receive research training and mentorship as I pursue clinical and translational research in speech-language pathology and audiology. The program also provides opportunities to collaborate with students and professionals from various disciplines and explore diverse approaches to addressing complex health challenges.
This year, I am also grateful to be part of the ThinkImpact program through the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit. The program is helping me explore social entrepreneurship within the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and it is pushing me to advocate for the field through a business perspective to an even wider range of audiences.
Why did you decide to pursue a PhD in SLP at CWRU after your master’s degree?
I completed my undergraduate degree in Communication Sciences (COSI) and Psychology at CWRU, so I was familiar with the program. During my time at CWRU, I had strong relationships with the COSI department through my work in the SpAR Lab and by serving as president of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA) for two consecutive years.
After I finished my master’s degree and became a bilingual clinician, I experienced the lack of resources available to serve bilingual communities, which led me to wonder how we might develop tools more efficiently and make them more accessible to support both clinicians and families.
As a result, I decided to pursue a PhD and return to CWRU, where I knew I would have the opportunity to rejoin the SpAR Lab and work with Dr. Lauren Calandruccio, my undergraduate mentor. I knew that rejoining the COSI community would immerse me in a safe yet stimulating and challenging environment. I had no doubts about returning to a place that encourages creativity and innovation in finding answers and solutions to clinical problems.
What are your plans after graduation?
After graduation, I hope to enter the social entrepreneurial space and create an organization dedicated to developing bilingual tools that improve interactions between patients and speech-language pathologists and audiologists.My clinical, research, and personal experiences drive me to continue learning, innovating, and collaborating with others who share the vision of making speech-language pathology and audiology services accessible and equitable for bilingual communities. By the end of the program, my goal is to have established a strong foundation to develop this organization.