I am very excited to be writing this message at the start of my first academic year as Chair of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at Ohio State. For those whom I’ve not yet met, my name is Eric Bielefeld. I completed my graduate training at SUNY Buffalo in the area of drug treatments to prevent noise-induced hearing loss. I am also a licensed and certified audiologist. I joined the faculty here at Ohio State as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2009. I teach the undergraduate Neurology of the Speech and Hearing Mechanism and the graduate Anatomy and Physiology of the Auditory System courses.
My wife, Dava, and I just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. We have two children, Doyle (age 16) and Maude (age 13). When we moved to Columbus from Buffalo, we were leaving our hometown for the first time, and Dava and I both had real trepidation about being away from our family and friends. Making it even more stressful, Dava was about seven months pregnant with Maude at the time. I was joining the department as a temporary visiting professor, and there was no guarantee I would be able to stay after one academic year. Despite that, the faculty and staff in the department embraced and supported my family and me in incredibly generous and caring ways. It is impossible to overstate how meaningful that experience was. It changed my life, and it helped to define the type of leader I aspire to be. By Spring of 2010, I wanted nothing more than to stay in the department and continue to be a part of this community. I was very fortunate to be able to do so and to continue to be well supported throughout my time as a faculty member, culminating now with an opportunity to take a leadership role as Department Chair.
Our outgoing Chair, Dr. Rob Fox, led the department for 28 years. He has left the department in an excellent position to grow in our mission of leadership in research, teaching, and outreach to the community. I am fortunate to have had his mentorship over the last 14 years and that he will continue to be a part of the department as an Emeritus Professor.
We have already achieved some great steps forward this year. We have welcomed a new faculty member whose research program focuses on swallowing disorders, Dr. Cagla Kantarcigil. Swallowing is an area for which we have sought research expertise for several years, and we are lucky to have Dr. Kantarcigil to complement the clinical expertise of our Clinical Assistant Professor, Nicole Wiksten. We are also welcoming two new Assistant Professors in January, Dr. Jissel Anaya and Dr. Nahar Albudoor, both of whom will be bringing expertise in bilingualism. They are part of an initiative to build a graduate certificate program in Spanish-English bilingualism in collaboration with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. At the same time, we are working to add new vestibular content to our AuD curriculum, led by Clinical Associate Professor Dr. Jodi Baxter and Clinical Assistant Professor Dr. Julie Hazelbaker, who is now serving as head of the AuD program. We are expanding our presence in undergraduate programming as well. Dr. Allison Bean is offering a second section of her Introduction to Autism course, a course that is proving to be very popular as a General Education Theme course. We are also developing a new service-learning course on community hearing screenings, led by Dr. Hazelbaker and Clinical Professor Dr. Gail Whitelaw.
This is an exciting time to be part of Speech and Hearing Science at Ohio State. I’m thrilled to be in the Chair position, and I hope that you’ll reach out to me anytime to talk about our bright present and future.
Our community is special, and I thank you for being a part of it.
