Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders

Transgender Communication and Wellness Conference - 2010

Dr. Richard K. Adler has been a speech-language pathologist for 36 years. He has worked in a variety of employment settings including public schools, university clinics, hospitals, private practice, and private clinics. He is currently Professor of Speech Language and Hearing Sciences at Minnesota State University, Moorhead (MSUM), where he also directs the Voice Disorders Clinic and supervises undergraduate and graduate students in the MSUM Clinic. In the past three years, he started a Transsexual/Transgender Voice and Communication Program within the MSUM Speech and Hearing Clinic. He has presented many workshops and seminars at local, state, and national speech and hearing conventions in the areas of transsexual voice and communication, traumatic brain injury, multicultural issues, listening skills, interpersonal communication, and gender issues in the voice clinic. He teaches courses in neuroanatomy, adult and pediatric neurogenics, research, phonetics, introduction to speech language and hearing sciences, and directs research projects and theses in the department; he also teaches Rhetorical Criticism of Feminist Speakers/Lecturers in the MSUM Master of Liberal Arts degree program. Dr. Adler's research areas include traumatic brain injury, multicultural issues, course development, GLBT issues in the academic and clinical setting, and transgender/transsexual voice and communication.

Mara is the founding Executive Director of NCTE. A Pennsylvania native, Mara came to Washington after co-chairing the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition. Mara is a transgender-identified woman who also identifies as a parent and a Pennsylvanian. She is a graduate of Penn State University and did her graduate work at Harvard University in American Government. She has served on the board of Directors of Common Roads, an LGBTQ Youth Group, and on the steering committee of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition. Mara has almost twenty-five years of professional experience in social marketing and opinion research.