Principle Investigator & BRAIN Lab Director
Cathy Off, Ph.D.

Hello!

I am a Professor and Chair in the School of Speech, Language, Hearing, & Occupational Sciences in the College of Health at the University of Montana and I direct the Behavioral Research for Aphasia and Intensive Neurorehabilitation (BRAIN) Lab.

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I have affiliations with the Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services Stroke Work Group, the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences (ANCDS), the British Aphasiology Society (BAS), and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's Special Interest Group 2: Neurogenic Communication Disorders. I am also a active member of Aphasia Access.

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​Before taking my tenure-track position at the University of Montana, I worked as a lecturer at California State University - Northridge, where I began to clinically explore the implementation of an intensive comprehensive aphasia program (ICAP).  Montana. The BRAIN Lab's research focuses on integrating principles of neuroplasticity into post-acute stroke and aphasia rehabilitation inteventions. As a lab, we are also dedicated to improving stroke and aphasia rehabilitation in the rural Mountain West, with a focus on both patient and family care partner outcomes and graduate student clinician training, in the context of the World Health Organization International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (WHO-ICF) model and patient-centered care.

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I completed my PhD at the University of Washington in the Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences under the mentorship of Dr. Margaret Rogers and Dr. Kristie Spencer. I completed my MS in Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Wyoming under the mentorship of Dr. Christie Thompson. I completed by BA in Linguistics with a concentration in Cognitive Science at the University of California-Berkeley. You can find out more about my background at my University of Montana website: https://www.umt.edu/people/Off

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