Join the department of epidemiology and biostatistics for a brown bag seminar by communication sciences and disorders faculty Kenn Apel and Krystal Werfel on “An Overview of Research Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (COMD).” The lecture will take place on Monday, January 29, 2018 from 1-2p.m. in Room 331 of Discovery 1 (915 Greene Street; Columbia, SC 29208). 

Drs. Kenn Apel and Krystal Werfel are from the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Kenn is professor and chair of the department. For over 30 years, he has been conducting research in the areas of spoken and written language and working with children, adolescents, and adults who have language-based learning deficits.  His research focuses on the underlying linguistic components that support the development of word-level reading and spelling. His current funded research is focused on the development of an assessment to measure elementary school children’s morphological awareness abilities. Dr. Apel is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and a recipient of that Association’s Honors Award. 

Dr. Krystal Werfel is an assistant professor in the COMD department and director of the written language lab. She also is a licensed and certified speech-language pathologist. Her research is clinical in nature and focuses on language and literacy acquisition in children with hearing loss and children with language impairment. She has had research funding from the International Reading Association, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.