Dr. Judith A. Cooper is currently Deputy Director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at the NIH. In addition, she serves as Director, Division of Scientific Programs, within NIDCD, and finally, she has programmatic responsibilities for the areas of language, language impairments, and language in deaf individuals. She received her B.F.A. at Southern Methodist University in 1971 with a major in Speech-Language Pathology, her M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology at Vanderbilt University in 1972, and her Ph.D. at the University of Washington in 1982 in Speech and Hearing Sciences. She was elected a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in 2006 and received the Honors of the Association in 2007.
She joined the National Institutes of Health as a Health Scientist Administrator (HSA) within the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke in November, 1982. Dr. Cooper became an HSA within the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, upon its establishment in October, 1988; subsequently served as Deputy Director as well as acting director of the Division of Human Communication; Chief, Scientific Programs Branch; and has been in her current position since January, 2004. Dr. Cooper's current responsibilities include overseeing and coordinating the activities of her division; advising within NIDCD and across the NIH regarding issues related to language and language disorders; participating in trans-NIH initiatives focused in language as well as autism; and, working with potential and funded researchers in language across the US and beyond, providing advice, direction, and encouragement related to research grant focus, development and preparation.
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Dr. Ruben P. Alvarez is currently director of the Language, Bilingualism, and Biliteracy Program in the Child Development and Behavior Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the NIH. Dr. Alvarez’s previous research focused on bilingual language development and neuroscience using behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging methods. His language research program is focused on developing and supporting research that advances understanding of normative language development from infancy through early adulthood. This includes understanding language and communication processes in bilingual and biliteracy development particularly among young dual language learners for whom English is a second language.
Dr. Alvarez received his Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University. Prior to his position at NICHD, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute for Mental Health, and served as an assistant professor at the University of Tulsa and the Laureate Institute for Brain Research.
Dr. Alvarez's current responsibilities include advising within NICHD and the NIH regarding issues related to language development, and working with potential and funded researchers in child language, providing advice, encouragement, and direction related to research grant focus, development and preparation.
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