Justine Joan Sheppard, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BCS-S (1938 - 2018) was an Adjunct Associate Professor in Speech Pathology at Teachers College from 1985 until her retirement and appointment to an honorary position in 2015. She was the Supervisor of the Infant Evaluation Clinic at The Edward D. Mysak Clinic for Communication Disorders from 1980 until 2018. She received her B.A. in Psychology from New York University, her M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University and her Ph.D. from Columbia University.

In addition to holding the American Speech-Language and hearing Association’s (ASHA) Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (CCC-SLP), she was an ASHA Fellow and a Board Certified Specialist in Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders (BCS-S). Her research focused on assessment and management of eating and swallowing disorders (dysphagia) in infants, children and adults with intellectual and developmental disability. Dr. Sheppard was active in continuing education and, in addition to her teaching at Teachers College, presented many workshops in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Europe. She was honored as Distinguished Visiting Lecturer, Department of Communication Disorders, University of Canterbury in Christchurch, NZ and as Guest Editor for a Clinical Forum on Dysphagia in the Schools, Language Speech and Hearing Services in the Schools. Dr. Sheppard contributed many scientific papers to peer reviewed journals and authored scholarly book chapters on topics in dysphagia in children and adults with developmental disability. She was a member of ASHA, NJSHA, DRS, AACPDM (Fellow) and IASSID. She was licensed as a Speech-language Pathologist in NY and NJ.

Dr. Sheppard developed the Dysphagia Disorder Survey (DDS), the Dysphagia Management Staging Scale (DMSS), the Choking Risk Assessment (CRA), and the Pneumonia Risk Assessment (PRA) over three decades of work in clinical and research environments.

The DDS/DMSS is widely used internationally.