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Information for prospective PhD Students: currently inviting applications!

A note from the lab PI:

Thank you for your interest in our lab! I am not actively recruiting a PhD student for admission in the 2023-2024 admissions cycle. 

Below, is a summary of anticipated training opportunities for a potential PhD students and information and resources for prospective graduate students in future application cycles.

Quick info

  • General information about the program can be found here: https://www.shrs.pitt.edu/phdcsd/admissions.
  • The application deadline is January of each year. Application review will begin after the deadline. 
  • Before you consider applying, I encourage you to send me an email so that we can discuss the program, your goals for a PhD and fit regarding research opportunities in the lab.

Helpful links

(Thanks to Natalia Velez http://nataliavelez.org for collecting these links!)

LRCL planned research outlook

Information about lab research interests and focus can be found here: https://www.lrcl.pitt.edu/research. 

You can also look at our recent publications (https://www.lrcl.pitt.edu/recent-publications) where we have underlined publications with student first authors which shows the type of research I have (enthusiastically) mentored and supported in the past. 

In terms of major funded lab research, the primary ongoing research project is a current NIH-NIDCD R01-funded research study of adaptive computer-based treatment in aphasia rehabilitation. This 5-year clinical trial builds off of our previous research on speed-accuracy tradeoffs and adaptive distributed practice in computer-based anomia treatment (see lab publications). The spec aims for this project is here: https://www.lrcl.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/r01_spec_aims.pdf.  

We are also currently completing an NIH-NICHD R03-funded pilot study adapting Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for stroke survivors with aphasia this upcoming year. I anticipate submitting additional grants to continue and expand this work which would provide additional opportunities for research in the area of counseling in aphasia.

Additional areas of interest that have received pilot funding and may result in new opportunities including gamification/ therapeutic aphasia games (https://www.aphasiagamesforhealth.com/) and increasing diversity, inclusion, and representation in aphasia research via target outreach to the local Black community in Pittsburgh. I also have a strong interests in translational and implementation research, and hope to move more in these directions in the next several years. 

Our lab also focuses on quantitative tools such as mixed-effects models, bayesian statistics, computational response time modeling, and reproducible research using R. While these may seem intimidating at first, PhD students receive mentoring and support as they develop skills in these areas and many students/clinicians who enter the PhD program at Pitt have little to zero knowledge in these methods when they start.

Other opportunities at Pitt

PhD students in my lab also generally have opportunities to collaborate and receive co-mentoring from other aphasia researchers in the Pittsburgh Translational Aphasia Research Initiative (PTARI; https://www.shrs.pitt.edu/csd/research/PTARI), including Drs. Sarah Wallace (https://www.shrs.pitt.edu/people/sarah-wallace), Michael Walsh Dickey (https://www.shrs.pitt.edu/people/michael-walsh-dickey), and William Hula (https://www.shrs.pitt.edu/people/william-d-hula). We have a strong track record of collaboration and co-mentoring PhD students, and students in PTARI generally have access to resources and peer support beyond their home lab. Many training fellowship opportunities are also available for PhD students once they are ready to start building their own research agenda (e.g., https://www.icre.pitt.edu/TL1/index.html).

What I'm looking for in a prospective PhD Student

  • I encourage applications from speech-language pathologists with clinical experience and research interest in the area of aphasia rehabilitation. All research in my lab is fundamentally based on clinical experiences and intuition and seeks to make a meaningful impact on the lives of individuals with apahsia and related disorders. Having a clinical background entering the lab is extremely helpful as PhD students contribute to the lab's research and begin to develop and refine independent research agenda's of their own. It is also important to me that prospective PhD students have a good handle on current clinical practice trends and have identified challenges and problems in aphaisa rehabilitation from their own experience that they want to solve. My interests in counseling and computer-based treatment stem from my own clinical practice as an outpatient SLP where I was humbled by the unmet counseling needs of my patients and how little treatment dosage I could typically offer.   
  • In addition, I am committed to improving diversity and inclusion in aphasia research, not just the individuals who participate in our clinical trials, but improving the representation of future researchers in the field. Therefore I encourage prospective students from all backgrounds to apply.

 

Thank you for checking out the lab and resources. Best of luck with grad school applications and your career path!

-Will

—
William S. Evans, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Associate Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh
Assistant Professor, Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), University of Pittsburgh
Email: will.evans@pitt.edu