Erin Campbell wants to help people who struggle to communicate
Faculty mentors and research experiences at TU prepared her for a Ph.D. program in cognitive neuroscience.
March 20, 2019
Erin Campbell ’18 wants to help people communicate, especially those who face challenges in getting their message across.
That’s why she values Towson University’s flexible academic programs, which, she says, enabled her to “carve an educational path that fit my interests and aspirations.”
Campbell not only had a three-pronged major in speech-language pathology and audiology; deaf studies; and interdisciplinary studies in disability, but also two minors—in Spanish and interdisciplinary studies in linguistics. She graduated from the Honors College, and was given the distinction of University Scholar at commencement.
She credits TU faculty with connecting her to a range of opportunities that shaped her research interests and propelled her toward the Ph.D. program in cognition and cognitive neuroscience at Duke University that she entered after graduation.
Opportunities like working as a program aid at the Hussman Center for Adults with Autism. And serving as a proctor and assistant for a class in which she interpreted visual information for DeafBlind instructor Jamie Pope by drawing signs on Pope’s back while she lectured.
Campbell also had the chance to conduct research on dysphonia in the lab of TU Professor Paul Evitts, which she presented at an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association conference in Los Angeles.
“A lot of professors have been really helpful and supportive,” says Campbell, who particularly appreciates the efforts of her adviser, Professor Diana Emanuel. “She really pushed me to keep exploring.”
“ I appreciate Towson’s extraordinary flexibility, which enabled me to carve an educational path that fit my interests and aspirations. ”
For example, when Campbell was considering graduate school, Emanuel put her in contact with a researcher at Johns Hopkins who helped her land an internship at JHMI doing research on the behaviors of parents reading to children with cochlear implants. It was an important experience, Campbell says, in preparing her to commit to the Duke Ph.D. program.
“Towson is great,” says Campbell, “because there are a lot of doors you can open if
you’re willing to go and open them.”