SDI Lab

📣This past weekend, April 17-18, Dr. Kendrea Garand presented at OSHLA (with her daughter!)

⭐️Our lab director presented “Dysphagia in Inclusion Body Myositis” at the Ohio Speech-Language-Hearing Association conference

Congratulations to Rena Li for successfully defending her thesis, “Sequential Swallowing Physiology of Mildly Thickened Liquids” 🥳 So proud of you and all of your hard work!

⭐️Shoutout to her committee members, Dr. Kendrea Garand, Dr. James Coyle, and Dr. Lea Sayce, for their guidance and support throughout Rena’s research

Our lab members are presenting at the Dysphagia Research Society’s Annual Conference this weekend in Aurora, CO👏

THURSDAY
🗣️”Lingual and respiratory muscle strength training in rehabilitation of chronic dysphasia following head and neck cancer treatment: a pilot study
🗣️”Characterizing swallow-by-swallow physiological variability in healthy adults using the MBSImP framework”

FRIDAY
🗣️ “A bottleneck: Impared bolus clearance features as key drivers of dysphagia and dystopia in inclusion body myositis”

Looking forward to the poster presentations!

SDI Lab 2026⭐️ Can’t wait to share all the incredible work this staff does👏

We are growing! 🥳 Check out our new lab photo! 📸 Pictured are: PhD Student (Katia Bruno) Master's thesis students (Varasiddhi Vinay and Rena Li), and undergraduate volunteers (Maddi Matiko, Anna Mince, Colleen Post, Julia Harvey, Faith Kopec, and Megan Kuhn), and our Director, Dr. G. 👏

Not pictured, undergraduate volunteers (Clare O'Connor, Arnav Kumar, and Sydney Duriancik). (And a shout-out to the cutest photographer, Melody Garand🥰)

On December 11th, our lab staff founder spoke at The Myositis Association: Ask the Expert Series 🙌🏻

🗣️Dr. Kendrea Garand provided her expert advice on swallowing issues, current diagnoses, and interventions to improve quality of life

🥳Congratulations, we are so proud of all that you do!

🌟So excited for the ASHA 2025 convention starting November 19th in Washington D.C.!

Don’t miss presentations from members of the SDI lab🙌🏻

⭐️So proud to share that some of our SDI lab staff presented a poster and a data blitz at the 10th Annual Sleep and Circadian Science Research Day on November 13, 2025

It was an amazing opportunity to share research, learn form others, and be apart of a supportive research community 🙌🏻

Pictured (left to right): Dr. Garand, Katie Bruno (SDI PhD Student), and Dr. Kaffenberger (ENT)

✨Another great publication from our SDI lab staff founder, Kendrea Garand, published in American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (AJSLP)

“International Survey of Practice Patterns of Speech-Language Pathologists Working with Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis”

🖇️Read the article here: https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpubs.asha.org%2Fdoi%2F10.1044%2F2025_AJSLP-25-00064&data=05%7C02%7CCMO62%40pitt.edu%7C18e6b532335042b8773408de0a95714c%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C638959834119430505%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=916nLc%2BfOFJwFCI%2BX%2FycDxbUgVvE0qcg5K99aAwDbQc%3D&reserved=0

📣Proud to share our poster, “Predictors of Pneumonia in Motor Neuron Disease (MND),” presented at the 2025 NEALS Annual Meeting!

Congrats Ting (former thesis student), and Drs. Zhang, Coyle, Sayce, and Garand 👏🏻