Lab Personnel
Our Team
Lab Director
Dr. Aimee Dietz
Dr. Aimee Dietz is a speech-language pathologist (SLP) who has dedicated her career
to improving outcomes for people with aphasia—first as a clinician, then as a clinical
researcher. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida State University.
During her clinical work, Dietz quickly learned that rehabilitation for people with
aphasia is grossly limiting.
She reports, “During inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation we work hard to restore lost language functions and when the person ‘plateaus’ in their recovery, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is provided to help them communicate — leaving them to feel as if therapists have given up on them and that recovery has ended.”
For these reasons, she completed her Ph.D. under the direction of Drs. David Beukelman and Karen Hux at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, with a focus on understanding the unique considerations involved in the development of AAC interface designs for people with aphasia. Over the last 20 years, Dr. Dietz has forged a line of research examining the role of AAC as a language recovery tool for people with chronic aphasia, using neuroimaging technologies to identify neurobiomarkers for AAC-induced language recovery. This work continues at the èAV, with an added emphasis of understanding how AAC can be successfully administered to people with aphasia via teletherapy — and during the subacute stages of post-stroke recovery.
In recent years, she has cultivated a new line of research that seeks to understand how mind-body practices, including adapted yoga, might be harnessed to build resilience and coping for people with post-stroke aphasia and their co-survivors. In 2020, Dr. Dietz completed her 200 hour Registered Yoga Teacher training to help advance this line of inquiry, and more recently earned her chair yoga certification. Dr. Dietz is the Founder & Director of the H2EALING Collective (Holistic Health and Engagement for people with Acquired Language Impairments and NeuroGenic conditions). The Collective was spearheaded together with Founding Partners & Associate Directors Dr. Lauren Bislick (University of Central Florida) and Dr. E. Susan Duncan (City University of New York Graduate Center); together they work alongside researcher, clinician, patient and caregiver partners to advance their mission to, “…promote well-being and quality of life for people touched by neurogenic conditions by cultivating acceptance, resilience, and coping through holistic health practices within a supportive community.” The Collective pursues their work in honor of Cincinnati stroke survivor Terri Kersey, who first helped launch the idea of integrating yoga into stroke rehabilitation before her unexpected death in 2019.
Over the years, Dietz has mentored more than 60 students, including the advising of master’s student research projects (theses and capstone research), undergraduate volunteers, honors students, and summer students through various programs such as McNair, University Honors Program and Women in Science and Engineering (WISE). She also enjoys mentoring Ph.D. students, post-doctoral fellows, as well as junior faculty. She actively pursues opportunities to enhance her mentoring skills through university-level programs, and through participation in programs via the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), such as Pathways, Mentoring Academic Research Career (MARC), and the Leadership Mentoring Program.
Lab Personnel details coming soon!