Stephen Camarata, Ph.D., professor of Hearing and Speech Sciences and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has been invited to serve a four-year term on the Communication Disorders Review Committee (CDRC) of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).
The NIDCD, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), conducts and supports research in the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech and language.
As part of the NIDCD’s Communication Disorders Review Committee, Camarata will work with committee members to advise the NIH and NIDCD directors on programs and activities in the areas of communication science. The committee provides primary technical review for contracts and reviews grant applications for program projects, National Research Service Award training grants, conference grants, Clinical Investigator Awards, Specialized Research Centers and projects in the communication and chemosensory sciences.
“This appointment is so well-deserved,” said Elisabeth Dykens, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and Annette Schaffer Eskind Professor. “Steve is one of those remarkable scholars who is always willing to share novel ideas. He consistently goes the extra mile to provide feedback to researchers. Steve’s new role at NIDCD is a perfect fit for these strengths.”
Committee members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and accomplishments in their scientific disciplines as evidenced by the quality of research, publications in scientific journals, and other significant scientific activities, achievements and honors.
“Service on a review committee requires mature judgment and objectivity as well as the ability to work effectively in a group, qualities we believe Dr. Camarata will bring to this important task,” said James Battey Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIDCD.
Camarata is a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Investigator who works in the areas of communication disorders, Down syndrome and language development and intervention.
“It is a real honor to represent Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in the scientific review process at the NIDCD,” Camarata said. “The CDRC study section is unique in the breadth of discovery reviewed, including human and animal models of hearing, balance, and communication as well as taste and smell sense processes. It will be very exciting to be part of this committee.”
