News

On Saturday, March 28, the UNC School of Medicine Division of Physical Therapy hosted its annual DPT Exploratory Day, welcoming 41 prospective students for an inside look at the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program and the physical therapy profession.  Held in Bondurant Hall, the full-day event offered attendees an immersive and engaging experience. The program opened with...

Bethany Stearns, MS, RT(R)(MR)(CT), CHEP, is a clinical assistant professor in the Radiologic Science division and serves as a clinical coordinator. She has been a radiologic technologist for nearly 10 years. From the start of her teaching career, she became fascinated with how technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI), is transforming radiologic science. Stearns...

Jean Jarrett is a fourth-year PhD student in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the UNC School of Medicine. She is a licensed speech-language pathologist and licensed behavior analyst with more than 10 years of clinical experience working primarily with individuals with autism.  Jarrett earned her bachelor’s degree...

Characterizing Sleep Outcomes in School-Age Children with Hearing Loss is a two-year grant, awarded December of 2025, funded by the American Speech-Language-Hearing (ASH) Foundation. This project investigates objective and subjective measures of sleep and fatigue in children with hearing loss who use hearing aids. The research is led by Julia Drouin, AuD, PhD, Director of the Auditory Language Learning (ALLears) Lab at UNC School of Medicine.  As a clinical audiologist,...

Noah Samples came to UNC after working as an EMT and is now a second-year student in the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program within the Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling (CRMH) division. Set to graduate this May, his path to counseling wasn’t straightforward. While working as an EMT, he...

Seven third year Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students volunteered at the APTA Combined Sections Meeting (CSM) in Anaheim, CA. CSM is a national physical therapy conference that brings together clinicians, researchers, and students from across the country.  During the event, our student volunteers assisted with attendee check-in, helped direct participants to educational sessions,...

The Physician Assistant Program marked a milestone this spring, celebrating its 10th annual White Coat Ceremony and welcoming the Class of 2027, the program’s tenth cohort. The Class of 2027 began their studies in January of 2026 and gathered for the ceremony on Feb. 20 at 4:30 p.m. in the...

Katarina L. Haley (PhD, CCC-SLP) and Adam Jacks (Phd, CCC-SLP) recently participated in the Swallow your Pride podcast where they talked about navigating challenges of speech disorders after experiencing strokes. During the podcast Jacks and Haley share the emerging findings on new perceptual and acoustic measures shaping the future of...

Dr. Hiral Master (PT, MDH, MPH), from the Division of Physical Therapy, was one of three women selected for the BIRCWH program. Master’s BIRCWH project aims to develop and pilot a digitally enhanced, theory informed intervention that delivers timely, personalized support to women with arthritis to promote physical activity. According...

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a rare, motor-based neurodevelopmental speech disorder with a genetic basis. Children with CAS know what they want to say, but have difficulty planning and coordinating the movements needed to speak, which results in speech breakdowns.  While much of the existing research has focused on young children, growing evidence shows that the effects of CAS often persist into adolescence and adulthood—highlighting the need...