Rebecca Mental, PhD, MPH

$92,854/year

Fulltime, 40 hours/week

• Direct all clinical operations and public health initiatives, demonstrating leadership and management skills through effective oversight of a team consisting of 18 speech-language pathologists and 2 community health workers, considering employee strengths and experience to inform assignment decisions
• Practice role of primary decision-maker and problem-solver for the department, seeking out additional information when needed and available, making decisions in the face of uncertainties, and anticipating the potential impact and risks of actions based on organizational dynamics and structure, (e.g., a lightening fast transition to remote services during the pandemic)
• Exhibit strong financial oversight and financial management skills (e.g., building and overseeing an annual departmental budget of $2,000,000+, reviewing financials regularly and making changes based on performance)
• Successfully negotiate, compose, manage, and close outside service contracts (e.g., yearly contracts for school-based services that must comply with legal requirements for special education services)
• Actively participate in grant life cycles, from proposal (narrative/budget) to acquisition to close. (e.g., securing grant funding of $1,00,000+ for a public health initiative)
• Serve as project manager/project officer for all grant-funded public health programming (e.g., defining and maintaining research-supported scope; overseeing outcome tracking; planning, scheduling, and facilitating team meetings; ensuring operations remain within budget constraints; reviewing and approving expenses; change management; maintaining compliance; providing advice for additional funding)
• Demonstrate strong written communication skills in composing grants and and communicating ideas, tailoring style to particular situations (e.g., gathering and synthesizing all data for the deliverables into a clear narrative to successfully convince a funder of the importance of early language)
• Display excellent organizational skills through the systematic monitoring, tracking, and management of grant deliverables (e.g., organizing deliverable targets across multiple grants for the same public health programming and establishing that all programs are on schedule and budget)
• Employ interpersonal skills for strategically networking and identifying, cultivating, and maintaining mission critical relationships and partnerships with outside organizations and stakeholders to expand the organization's reach, and managing those relationships through the lifecycle of a project (e.g., initiated and now maintain 15+ organizational partnerships for a grant-funded program)
• Calling on partners and contacts to help solve problems or gain knowledge (e.g., relationships with medical professionals to advise pandemic-time operations)
• Coordinate collaboration between different teams and departments working on grants to keep all departments aware of each other's actions and progress, guiding teams to consensus to achieve shared organizational goals (e.g., funding that covers activities for both the speech and language department and the Deaf center)
• Practice program assessment and through collaboration with data scientist to conduct comprehensive quantitative and qualitative data synthesis and analysis for evaluation of the effectiveness of programming, providing valuable insights for evidence-based decision-making (e.g., assisting in building, optimizing, and interpreting a Power BI dashboard)
• Provide consultation and technical, administrative, and management assistance for community agencies working on implementing evidence-based public health programming (e.g., training community health workers to spread public health messaging, including follow-up training and observation and feedback)
• Develop strategies for program promotion, education, communication, and outreach (e.g., carry out an ongoing public health communication campaign based on consumer and stakeholder feedback - "Catch and pass!")
• Coordinate outreach efforts into at-risk communities (e.g., free language screenings at child care centers in lower-SES areas)
• Make decisions about applying a health promotion framework to both clinical and public health messaging (e.g., addressing language disorder risk factors even before birth through pursuing a collaboration with pregnant person home visiting programs)
• Draft information relative to the organization's mission, programs and accomplishments for dissemination to the public and the media to increase communication and understanding with the public (e.g., yearly impact reports)
• Represent the Center at state, national, and international level meetings, effectively communicating the organization's mission, initiatives, and accomplishments to diverse audiences (e.g., representing CHSC at state wide legislative days)
• Use strong oral communication skills to deliver engaging continuing education and research content at the local, state, and national level (e.g., recording a 2 hour talk on language disorders and public health for the Ohio Speech-Language-Hearing Association)
• Provide internal knowledge-building presentations within the department and across the organization, along with advising others on their own presentations (e.g., helping prepare a fellow for a presentation to the organization's board of directors)
• Respond to inquiries from a variety of sources using established policies, procedures, and protocols (e.g. understanding the guidelines of how to engage with representatives from the media versus inquiries from program officers)
• Display strong written communication skills through producing high-quality white papers, using comprehensive research and analytical skills to distill complex information into clear, concise, and informative documents that effectively communicate key insights and recommendations (e.g., the effect of a pre-literacy program that went out with a donation campaign for the board of directors and donors that led to increased board and donor support for our programs)
• Leverage expertise in scholarly literature synthesis, clinical service provision, and public health to generate innovative and creative evidence-based educational and intervention programs and recommendations (e.g., a global parent-implemented therapy goal that led to increased outcomes and parent satisfaction and feelings of empowerment, with 85% of families reaching their parent-implemented therapy goal)
• Interpret existing policies and compose new policies based on organizational need (e.g., revision to the strict non-complete policy to attract stronger candidates)
• Practice open communication with executive leadership about opportunities for program and process improvement at the departmental and agency level (e.g., lobbying successfully to dissolve the organization's non-compete clause to improve staff morale and attract better candidates)
• Identified community needs for lower-socioeconomic status families, and collaboratively conceptualized, planned, developed and implemented Project ELLA, a novel public health initiative focused on language development for children birth to age 5 in the Northeast Ohio area. Since implementation, Project ELLA has provided no-cost, evidence-based services for 300+ children, for a total of over 4,000 clinical visits and over 2,000 hours of services, helping resolve health-related problems and issues

$1,500/credit hour

Part time, 12 hours/week during active semesters

• Deliver engaging and impactful instruction for Evidence-Based Practice and Evidence-Based Practice Laboratory courses, introducing students to multidisciplinary clinical research methods and literature
• Guide students in conducting rigorous meta-analyses on clinical interventions, fostering critical thinking and clinical research synthesis skills while ensuring adherence to evidence-based methodologies
• Contribute expertise and guidance as a member of graduate thesis committees and undergraduate capstone committees, providing mentorship and constructive feedback to support students in their successful completion of their theses
• Serve as an advisor and mentor for undergraduate students undertaking capstone projects, offering guidance, support, and constructive feedback to foster their growth

$74,112/year

Fulltime, 40 hours/week

• As the first director of research at the agency, contributed to the development and implementation of research policies and procedures to promote a culture of research excellence and integrity within the clinical setting (e.g., introduced research methods and case presentations into weekly meetings)
• Managed research budgets, including grant applications and funding allocations, to support ongoing research activities (e.g., managed 3 grants for a community-based dialogic book reading program)
• Established and maintained collaborations with internal and external partners and organizations, both national and international (e.g., collaborated with an research group from Israel to introduce and evaluate a home-based speech sound practice app to an American audience)
• Developed and implemented research strategies and protocols to support clinical investigations (e.g., trained staff in single-subject research methods)
• Served as a trusted resource for questions about regulatory and policy matters for introducing clinical research methods with human subjects into clinical services (e.g., discussed how to collect survey data in a protected manner)
• Completed IRB proposals for clinical research studies that included human subjects (e.g., for a study on accent modification for medical professionals)
• Analyzed and interpreted research data using statistical software (e.g., SPSS to analyze International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids, a patient reported outcome measure)
• Facilitated research dissemination and knowledge translation through workshops, state, national, and international presentations, and community engagement activities (e.g., presenting on research at ASHA, the national conference for speech-language pathologists and audiologists)
• Stayed abreast of advancements and trends in the field of clinical research (e.g., setting aside time each week to review the latest research)

$28,231/year

Part time, 20 hours/week

• Specialized in the use of visual biofeedback for the remediation of residual speech sound errors, funded through an NIH NIDCD grant
• Performed comprehensive screenings and evaluations for individuals of all ages, assessing speech and language abilities through a variety of standardized assessments and clinical observations
• Delivered individualized and group-based speech and language intervention programs across the lifespan, encompassing goal setting, progress monitoring, and discharge recommendations for optimal client outcomes
• Counseled clients families dealing with communication disorders and differences
• Collaborated with and provided consultation for medical professionals (e.g., consulting with a psychiatrist about working with a person who suffered a stroke)
• Used scholarly evidence and data interpretation to inform clinical decision making and recommendations

$20,000/year stipend

Part time, 20 hours/week

• Managed day-to-day operations of the lab, including training and supervision of all masters-level and undergraduate lab members
• Developed and documented protocol for the lab's first clinical treatment research study
• Collaborated on the preparation of research proposals, grant applications, and academic publications (e.g., an NIH NIDCD SBIR grant that was funded for $750,000)
• Completed IRB proposals and IRB continuing review documents for studies that included vulnerable populations (e.g., pediatric participants as young as 3 years of age)
• Coordinated all grant-funded research activities, including clinical research and basic human-subject research, directed and participated in data collection, and ensured adherence to research protocols and ethical guidelines
• Worked with researchers, faculty, and students on various research projects both internal to the university and external, including international collaborators (e.g., collaborated with another lab to introduce kinematic data to their American Sign Language research)
• Member of multidisciplinary teams (e.g., collaborated with a team with scientists, speech-language pathologists, dental surgeons, and engineers)
• Served as a point person for pediatric human subjects protection guidelines for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers (e.g., those newly including vulnerable populations in their research)
• Addressed questions from the research team and provided program advice and advised on regulatory and policy matters about protocol changes or additions in studies
• Provided technical training and consultation on all advanced lab technology, including the use of multiple types of motion capture systems for data collection and various software programs for scrubbing data (e.g., Motion Analysis Cortex)
• Stayed abreast of advancements and trends in the field of clinical research (e.g., introduced the new technique of crowd sourcing into the lab's clinical research speech outcomes)
• Conducted data analysis using statistical software (e.g., using MATLAB to analyze kinematic features of consonant production in phrases)
• Facilitated research dissemination and knowledge translation through state, national, and international presentations (e.g., presented at the National Phonetic Association conference in Portugal)