Thompson Named Ralph and Jean Sundin Professor in Communication Science

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Cynthia Thompson, professor of communication sciences and disorders in the Northwestern University School of Communication, has been named a Ralph and Jean Sundin Professor in Communication Science.

Thompson’s research focuses on normal and disordered language and how language recovers in persons with brain damage. The results of her research have been integrated into the treatment of individuals who have suffered strokes and other brain injuries.

Thompson’s research has been supported by major federally funded grants, primarily from the National Institutes of Health for 17 consecutive years. She has authored more than 80 articles and three books, and her most recent scholarship has appeared in the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Aphasiology and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Thompson is the recipient of the 2008 Editor’s Award from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology for “Complexity in Treatment of Syntactic Deficits,” an article she coauthored, detailing novel rehabilitation techniques for individuals who have difficulty producing and comprehending sentences after a stroke. She received the Martin E. and Gertrude G. Walder Award for Research Excellence in 2007.

She is a fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and a member of several professional organizations, including the Academy of Aphasia, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society and the Society for Neuroscience. Thompson holds a faculty appointment in the Feinberg School of Medicine and is principal investigator of the Aphasia and Neurolinguistics Research Laboratory at Northwestern. She joined the Northwestern faculty in 1992.

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