Dr. Jamie Boster
Dr. Jamie Boster is the Director of Research in Speech Pathology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and an adjunct assistant professor at The Ohio State University. Her primary area of expertise is augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Dr. Boster’s research focuses on the design of AAC systems for children with visual impairments, including cortical visual impairment. She has also developed participation-based interventions for children who use AAC and their peers, and has explored co-treatment models involving speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists.
Tike DeMarco
Tike M. DeMarco has a background in special education, program development, and transition planning. She supports individuals, families, and teams in building systems of support that increase access, equity, advocacy, and self-determination. She holds a Master of Public Administration and is a certified Assistive Technology Specialist. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy and is a therapist-in-training at Samaritan House Free Clinics.
She serves as Director of Transition at The Bridge School (TBS) and is a service provider with Bridge to Life, an affiliate program of TBS. She leads the school’s Self-Determination Program, which integrates AAC mentors and the Framing A Future planning tool developed by King, Lunger, and Toomey (2005). She is also co-developing the Self-Determination Continuum, a framework designed to support and track the growth of self-determination skills over time.
Dr. Jana Iverson
Jana M. Iverson, Ph.D. is Christopher A. Moore Professor of Pediatric Rehabilitation and Associate Dean for Research at Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University. Her research, funded by NICHD, NIDCD, and Autism Speaks, focuses primarily on the interface between the development of early motor skills and the emergence of communication and language in neurotypical infancy and in infants with or at risk for neurodevelopmental conditions. Dr. Iverson has published a co-edited book and more than 100 articles and book chapters. She is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Child Language and Language Learning and Development and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.
Dr. Fei Luo
Fei is the Director of Research at Bridge to Life, The Bridge School. She has extensive experiences working with children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). She conducts research on improving AAC assessment and intervention for children with significant communication and physical disabilities and cortical/cerebral visual impairment (CVI). Her past projects include using hands-free support walkers with children with significant communication and physical disabilities, improving outcomes of children with CVI who use AAC, and analysis of face-to-face interaction between adult AAC users with ALS and familiar partners.
Joy McCollum‑Franco
Joy McCollum‑Franco, ATP, is a RESNA‑certified Assistive Technology Professional with 35 years of experience at The Bridge School. She specializes in evaluating and supporting students’ assistive technology needs in the areas of seating, positioning, access, and mobility, working directly in classroom settings to ensure individualized and effective solutions.
Dr. Rose Sevcik
Rose A. Sevcik, Ph.D. is Regents’ Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University, Atlanta, and Co-Director of the Center for Research on the Challenges of Acquiring Language and Literacy (RCALL). She is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC), the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), and the Association for Psychological Science (APS). She is past President of AAIDD’s Communication Disorders Division and former Coordinator for ASHA’s Special Interest Division 12: AAC. Her funded research program focuses on the language, literacy and communication development of children and youth with significant developmental disabilities. She has an extensive publication record and has given numerous presentations to national and international audiences. She is a member and Co-Chair of the National Joint Committee on the Communication Needs of Individuals with Severe Disabilities and the co-editor of the international journal AAC.
Alyssa Sims
Alyssa Sims is a Speech Language Pathologist who has worked at The Bridge School since 2023. She completed her Master’s in Speech Language Pathology from Northeastern University where she worked clinically at Perkins School for the Blind, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Franklin Early Childhood Center in Melrose, MA. Alyssa holds both clinical and research interests in early childhood education, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and Cortical visual impairment (CVI).
Gabriela Rangel
Gabriela Rangel, PhD, is a psychologist with over 17 years of experience supporting individuals who benefit from Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and their support networks. Her work focuses on fostering social-emotional learning, self-determination and advocacy, mental health, and overall well-being through communication-centered and relational approaches, in her roles as a trainer, consultant, and researcher.
She is a member of the ISAAC International Research Committee and the North American Alliance for Communication Access. She also serves as a professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and maintains active international collaborations, including with The Bridge School.
Dr. MaryAnn Romski
MaryAnn Romski, Ph.D. received her Ph.D. in speech-language pathology from the University of Kansas. She is an ASHA-certified speech-language pathologist and Regents Professor of Communication, Psychology, and Communication Sciences & Disorders at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. She is the Director of the Center for Research on Atypical Development and Learning (CRADL) and a founding member of the Center on Research on Challenges to Acquiring Language & Literacy (RCALL). Dr Romski is a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA), and the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC). She received the Honors of ASHA in 2015, the AAIDD Leadership Award in 2019, and the AAIDD President’s Award in 2021.
Her research program focuses on the communication development of children and adults with developmental disorders who encounter difficulty speaking, particularly the development and evaluation of computerized communication interventions. Dr. Romski has published 3 books, more than 150 articles, and chapters, and has given numerous national and international presentations. She extended her intervention research with colleagues in South Africa with the development of a self-guided app to teach parent communication strategies to use with their children at home. She is the past chair of the National Joint Committee (NJC) on the Communication Needs of Individuals with Severe Disabilities and remains AAIDD’s representative. Dr Romski is the Co-Editor of the international journal, Augmentative and Alternative Communication.
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