Plural Publishing’s Consulting Editors are some of the leaders in our profession who guide Plural’s vision for excellence by understanding the needs of the professionals we serve.

Dr. Michael S. Benninger, M.D., is the Chairman of the Head and Neck Institute at The Cleveland Clinic, beginning in January of 2008. He came from the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan, where he was the Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, the Cummings-Brush Chair in Surgical Education and the Chair of the Board of Governors for the Henry Ford Medical Group and Hospital.

In addition to his work at the hospital, Dr. Benninger has been very involved in regional, national, and international medical organizations. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) fro 12 years, having been a former Vice President and Chairman of the Board of Governors of that organization. He is a Past-President of the American Rhinologic Society and the Michigan Oto-Laryngological Society. He is the past Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, which is the largest peer-reviewed journal in the world for that specialty. He is the treasurer and on the executive council of the American Laryngologic Association. Dr. Benninger is on the Board of Directors of the Voice Foundation and the International Association of Phonosurgeons, and has recently been on the Executive Council of the Triological Society. He has served on the Residency Review Committee for Otolaryngology and as a member of the Medical Advisory Board for WebMD. He is the Past-Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Sinus and Allergy Health Partnership.

Dr Benninger has authored or edited 5 books, including his most recent, The Performer’s Voice. He has also has written numerous book chapters and over 125 scientific articles, focusing primarily on voice care and laryngology, nasal and sinus disease and health care management. He has lectured extensively across the country and throughout the world.

A graduate of Harvard University, Dr. Benninger received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He completed his residency at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

M. N. (Giri) Hegde, Ph.D., is Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at California State University-Fresno. He holds a master’s degree in experimental psychology from the University of Mysore, India, a post master’s diploma in Medical (Clinical) Psychology from Bangalore University, India, and a doctoral degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Dr. Hegde is a specialist in fluency disorders, language disorders, research methods, and treatment procedures in communicative Disorders. He has made numerous presentations to national and international audiences on various basic and applied topics in communicative disorders and experimental and applied behavior analysis. With his deep as well as wide scholarship, Dr. Hegde has authored several highly regarded and widely used scientific and professional books, including Treatment Procedures in Communicative Disorders, Clinical Research in Communicative Disorders, Introduction to Communicative Disorders, A Coursebook on Aphasia and Other Neurogenic Language Disorders, A Coursebook on Scientific and Professional Writing in Speech-language Pathology, A Coursebook on language Disorders in Children, Hegde’s PocketGuide to Treatment in Speech-Language Pathology, and Hegde’s PocketGuide to Assessment in Speech-language Pathology. He also has served on the editorial boards of scientific and professional journals and continues to serve as an editorial consultant to Journal of Fluency Disorders and the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.

Dr Hegde is a recipient of various honors including the Outstanding Professor Award from California State University-Fresno, CSU-Fresno Provost’s Recognition for Outstanding Scholarship and Publication, Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Southern Illinois University Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and Outstanding Professional Achievement Award from District 5 of California Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Dr. Hegde is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Thomas J. Hixon, Ph.D. is Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Director of the National Center for Neurogenic Communication Disorders, and Dean Emeritus of the Graduate College at the University of Arizona. He was formerly Head of the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Director of Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs, Director of the Movement Neuroscience Program, Research Integrity Officer, and Associate Vice President for Research at the same institution. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and did postdoctoral work in physiology at Harvard University. Hixon is a fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and holds its Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology. He has also been awarded Honors of the Association, the Council of Editor’s Award, and two Journal Editor’s Awards from the Association for the outstanding article of the year. Hixon has served as an Editorial Reviewer and/or Associate Editor to over a dozen speech and voice journals and twice served as an Editor for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, once as Editor of the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research and once as the Speech Section Editor of the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. His research interests center on normal and abnormal speech production and the biomechanics of singing.

Jeannette D. Hoit, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at the University of Arizona and a speech-language pathologist. She is also a member of the Program in Neuroscience faculty, Motor Control Training faculty, and Coordinator of the University of Arizona Graduate Training Program in Survival Skills and Ethics. Dr. Hoit received her B.A. in Anthropology from University of California at Los Angeles, her M.A. in Communicative Disorders from San Diego State University, her Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Arizona, and pursued postdoctoral study in the Harvard School of Public Health Respiratory Biology Program and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Speech Research Laboratory. She is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, past-President of the American Association of Phonetic Sciences, and has received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Health and Human Services, San Diego State University. Dr. Hoit's research focuses on speech physiology, with particular emphasis on normal aging, neuromotor speech disorders, and respiratory function and dysfunction, including ventilator-supported speech and speaking-related dyspnea. Most of her research has been supported by grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and she has served on the National Institutes of Health Biobehavioral and Behavioral Processes study section. Dr. Hoit has a long history of editorial experience with over a dozen journals and she is currently Editor of the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Dr. Hoit's daily life consists of mentoring undergraduate and graduate students and she has been recognized for these contributions with teaching and advising awards.

Ray D. Kent, Ph.D. is Professor of Communicative Disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His current primary research interests include: neurogenic speech disorders in children and adults, speech development in infants and young children, procedures to assess speech intelligibility and quality, acoustic analyses of speech, and theories of speech production. In addition to more than 150 journal articles, book chapters, and reviews, he has authored or edited the following books: Clinical Phonetics (with L. D. Shriberg), Decision Making in Speech-Language Pathology (with D. E. Yoder), Papers in Speech Communication (Vols. 1-3) (with J. L. Miller and B. S. Atal), Intelligibility in Speech Disorders: Theory, Measurement, and Management, The Acoustic Analysis of Speech (with C. Read), Reference Manual for Communicative Sciences and Disorders: Speech-Language Pathology, The Speech Sciences, The New Phonologies (with M. J. Ball), Dictionary of Speech-Language Pathology (with S. Singh), Handbook of Voice Quality Measurement (with M. J. Ball), and The MIT Encyclopedia of Communication Disorders. His journal editing experience includes: editor of the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, associate founding editor of Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, and associate editor for motor speech disorders for Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica. Kent received the Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in 1994 and was awarded the Docteur Honoris Causa (Honorary Doctorate) from the Faculte de medecine, Universite de Montreal, in 1995. He is a fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the Acoustical Society of America, and the International Phonetics Association. He has presented lectures and workshops in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Kent was born in Red Lodge, Montana, and received his B.A. degree from the University of Montana. He did graduate work at the University of Iowa and received the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in 1969 and 1970, respectively. Following postdoctoral work in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also served as a Senior Research Associate at Boys Town Institute for Communication Disorders in Children from 1979-1982.

He currently serves as: Vice President for Research and Technology, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2004-2006); a member of the NIDCD Advisory Council, and founding chair of the Motor Speech Disorders Committee of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics.

Leonard L. (Chick) LaPointe, Ph.D., received his Bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado. He currently occupies an endowed distinguished professor chair, the Francis Eppes Professor of Communication Disorders, at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He also serves an invited term as Annual Visiting Professor in the School of Health Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He has also served as a Visiting Research Professor at the University of Hong Kong. His research focus is in the area of neurological disorders of communication and cognition. He is the founding and current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology.

Dr. LaPointe has authored or co-authored 5 books, 35 book chapters, over 80 journal articles, and presented more than 400 papers, lectures, or invited workshops in the United States, the former Soviet Union, several countries in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, and the South American countries of Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil. He has received the Honors of the Arizona Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the Academy of Neurological Communication Disorders and Sciences, and the Clinical Career Award from the Florida Society of Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists.

He enjoys salt water, music, wine and the culinary arts, reading, writing, humor, the cultivation of optimism and the absurd, and is the author of Blood Ice, a novel published by AuthorHouse.com

Bruce Murdoch is currently the Head of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and Director of the Motor Speech and Neurogenic Language Disorders Research Centre at The University of Queensland, Australia. He is internationally recognised for his research into acquired speech and language disorders of neurological origin in both adults and children. He has published 10 books and in excess of 270 articles in high impact refereed international journals in the area of motor speech and language disorders associated with a variety of neurological conditions including traumatic brain injury, cerebrovascular accidents, Parkinson’s disease, brain tumors and multiple sclerosis. Professor Murdoch has also contributed in excess of 50 invited chapters to books edited by other internationally recognised researchers. He has held the position of visiting professor at several institutions in the USA and Europe. He was the Foundation President of the Asia-Pacific Society for the Study of Speech, Language and Hearing from 2000-2004, and Vice-President of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics from 2001-2004.

Professor Murdoch is a member of the editorial boards of Aphasiology, Journal of Medical-Speech-Language Pathology, Brain Impairment and NeuroRehabilitation, as well as Founding Editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing and Editor for the Asia-Pacific Region of Acta Neuropsychologica.

The Motor Speech and Neurogenic Language Disorders Research Centre at the University of Queensland was established by Professor Murdoch in the early 1990’s and since that time, under his direction, it has become internationally recognised as a one of the most productive and influential research centres of its type world-wide. The research centre attracts numerous international visitors each year and has been influential in establishing the importance of physiologically based techniques in the assessment and treatment of neurologically based communication deficits.

Professor Murdoch in recent years has presented invited plenary addresses at international conferences in Canada, USA, Scandinavia, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, South Africa, Hong Kong and Taiwan. During the past three years he has conducted a number of workshops on neurogenic speech/language disorders in Brazil, Sweden, Hong Kong, Taiwan, United Kingdom, USA and Canada.

Thomas Murry, Ph.D. is the Clinical Director of the Voice and Swallowing Center, Columbia University and Professor of Speech Pathology in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida and his post-doctoral training from the Communication Sciences Laboratory, University of Florida.

Dr Murry has distinguished himself as a scientist, clinician and educator in the areas of voice and swallowing. He serves on he Scientific Advisory Board of The Voice Foundation and on the Pan European Voice Congress. His early research in voice science encompassed a wide range of voice related topics including underwater communication systems, laryngeal cancer, performer’s voice disorders and laryngeal neuropathologies. His current research interests include voice disorders and issues in performers’ voices.

Dr Murry has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in national and international scientific journals and has presented over 500 lectures at conferences throughout the world. He has authored or edited 7 books on voice, speech and swallowing and has contributed numerous chapters to various scientific texts and web sites.

Marilyn Newhoff is an internationally known scholar in the normal and disordered aspects of both child and adult language. Her numerous publications can be found in prestigious journals, as well as classroom and reference texts.

Dr. Newhoff was the Founding Editor of the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. In 1992, in recognition of her contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders, she received the Distinguished Alumnae Award from The University of Memphis.

Immediately prior to coming to San Diego State University, Dr. Newhoff served as the Senior Associate Dean of the Graduate School at The University of Georgia. Currently, Dr. Newhoff serves as Dean of the College of Health and Human Services.

John (Jay) Rosenbek, Ph.D., is a Professor and Chair, Department of Communicative Disorders, College of Public Health & Health Professions, University of Florida.  He has practiced speech-language pathology for 35 years.  Along the way he has earned the Honors of the Association and the Frank Kleffner Career Clinical Award for sustained clinical excellence.  He maintains an active outpatient clinic.  In addition, his research into treatment of swallowing and prosodic abnormalities continues.  He also is mentoring a number of Ph.D. students who are part of the College's interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Science Program.  In his spare time he rides his bike and plants trees.

Christine Sapienza, Ph.D., is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. She also is a research health scientist at the Malcom Randall VA in Gainesville, Florida, with the Brain Rehabilitation Research Center.

Dr. Sapienza received her Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1993 in speech and voice science, and her current research interests are disordered voice production, treatment of neuromotor disorders, defining outcomes of strength training paradigms, and integrating basic physiological techniques to study rehabilitation strategies.

Her most recent work focuses on the use of strength training paradigms in multiple populations, including Parkinson’s disease, voice disorders, spinal cord injury, and multiple sclerosis. She maintains an active research laboratory with four current Ph.D. students. She has three active research grants, including an NIH/NCMMR R21, a Michael J. Fox Foundation Grant, and a VA Merit Review. She has over 90 publications and 150 lectures, presentations, and workshops to date.

Robert Thayer Sataloff, M.D., D.M.A. is Professor of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery at Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University; Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery of Graduate Hospital; Adjunct Professor of Otorhinolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery; on the faculties of the Academy of Vocal Arts and the Curtis Institute of Music; Conductor of the Thomas Jefferson University Choir and Orchestra; Director of the Jefferson Arts Medicine Center; and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Voice Foundation and the American Institute for Voice and Ear Research.  Dr. Sataloff is also a professional singer and singing teacher.  He holds an undergraduate degree from Haverford College in Music Theory and Composition and a medical degree from Jefferson Medical College, received a Doctor of Musical Arts in Voice Performance from Combs College of Music, and completed his residency in Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Michigan.  He also completed a Fellowship in Otology, Neurotology, and Skull Base Surgery at the University of Michigan.  He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Voice, and of ENT Journal. He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Singing, Medical Problems of Performing Artists, the Annals of Otology, Rhinology, and Laryngology, and Ear, Nose & Throat Journal, and serves on the editorial review boards of many major otolaryngology journals in the United States.  Dr. Sataloff has written more than 500 publications, including 24 books.  His medical practice is limited to care of the professional voice and to neurotology-skull base surgery.

Brad Stach, Ph.D., is Director of the Division of Audiology, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, of the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. Dr. Stach has served in audiology leadership positions in Houston, Washington, D.C., Palo Alto, Halifax, and St. Louis. He has also held faculty appointments at the Baylor College of Medicine, Georgetown University, Stanford University, Dalhousie University, Washington University of Saint Louis, and Wayne State University, among others. Dr. Stach is the author of a number of books, bookchapters, and articles and is an editorial consultant for several professional journals. He was a founding board member of the American Academy of Audiology and has served as its President and the Chair of its Foundation Board of Trustees.

Jennifer Windsor, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Her major research interests are in primary language impairments and the cognitive capabilities underlying children’s language performance. She currently co-directs the Center for Cognitive and Social Processes in Language at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Windsor is a past Associate Editor for the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research and the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, and she edited Language Intervention: Preschool through the Elementary Years (with M.E. Fey and S.F. Warren). She currently serves as an editorial consultant for several journals. Dr. Windsor has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She received the 2001 JSLHR Editor’s Award in Language from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Dr. Windsor received her Bachelor’s degree from Cumberland College of Health Sciences in Sydney, Australia. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University in Indiana.