Tuesday, August 15, 2006

BSA Telford Conference

I am currently preparing the research section of the British Stammering Association (BSA) annual conference at Telford from September 15th to 17th. You find more information: here.

This year there will be a big research section on Sat Sep 16th. I have managed to get Denis Drayna from NIH, a leading experts in genetics of stuttering, Gerry Maguire, a leading experts in pharmacology of stuttering (he is the chief investigator for the Pagoclone study, I think, but certainly involved), Per Alm who has done excellent work in brain research and whom I consider one of the best and most rigorous scientists working on stuttering albeit with no permanent position, no research group of its own and not significant money behind, and Kate Watkins who is a lecturer at Oxford University and had done a lot of brain work before, and heads the research project into stuttering and hired Per to be postdoctoral researcher.

There will be a morning session with a research plenary followed by a Q&A session. Per, Gerry and Dennis will each talk about their respective research field and one has been achieved so far. I will give a brief 10-minute presentation to set the stage, but they will talk for 20-30 minutes each. I also chair the Q&A session with the panel being Per, Gerry, Dennis, Kate and Louise Wright, an SLT / researcher / lecturer who has been involved with the BSA for a long time and is probably best know for a multi-dimensional evaluation system called WASP. The research plenary will be attended by all conference participants, so we need to make it as conceptually simple and entertaining as possible.

In the afternoon, I am planning a mini-conference with talks by the researchers and debate with a multi-disciplinary slate... this is work in progress...

If you are interested in research, I hope you can make it to Telford in England!

I will also be completely jet-lagged as I return from a one-week consultancy project from San Diego (California) at 6 o'clock in the morning at London Heathrow.

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