From the President

Dear Members,

Namaste! I hope you are all staying safe and cool this summer. As the new President of the South Asian Caucus of ASHA (SAC-ASHA; 2022-2024), I am excited to reach out to you through the ASHA KIRAN newsletter. I took a small hiatus from my responsibilities as President due to personal reasons. But our talented team that includes Dr. Anusha Sundarrajan (Vice President-Professional Development), Dr. Shriya Basu (Vice President-Public Relations), Ms. Puja Goel-Salkalkhar (Secretary), and Mr. Prabhu Eswaran (Advisor), continued to work towards the caucus’ mission and serve the South Asian community.

I am excited yet again, to launch the Summer 2022 edition of ASHA KIRAN, SAC-ASHA’s newsletter, where we highlight the achievements of our community members and discuss matters impacting our community. The Editorial Team of ASHA KIRAN, Dr. Reethee Madona Antony, Dr. Suma Suswaram, Dr. Ramesh Kaipa, and Dr. Madhu Sundarrajan, have done a commendable job. If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, I urge you to reach out to the editorial team personally to share your appreciation and suggestions for future content (sacaeditorialteam@gmail.com).

In this edition, we shine the spotlight on Dr. Glen Tellis, who shares his journey into the field of speech language pathology, research in fluency, achievements and challenges during his career, and perspectives on diversity. Make sure you listen for his advice for budding researchers as well as the most adventurous thing that he did after his Master’s thesis! 😊Dr. Anusha Sundarrajan inspires us with her experience launching and providing gender affirming voice services in a California clinic. This is a niche that certainly needs more providers and Dr. Sundarrajan’s team’s learnings will hopefully increase the breadth of services for the transgender population. Mr. Khwaja Moinudeen highlights socio-economic status as a key factor that influences healthcare decisions and provides an opportunity for audiologists to consider modifying services to accommodate clients’ needs. Ms. Samara Thomas reveals the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic brought during her Master’s program and how she rose above it. We thank our contributors for sharing bits of their life with us! We are proud of their work and contributions to the field.

I welcome our members to join our caucus and support our initiatives. Nothing is impossible if we join hands towards a common goal. We each have a responsibility in representing the South Asian voice within the disciplines of audiology and speech language pathology. In the words of my spiritual mentor, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, “Don’t do nothing because you can’t do everything. Do something. Anything.”

Ranjini Mohan, Ph.D., CCC-SLP