The VESFA study is Niamh Devane’s doctoral research project. It is funded by a studentship from the School of Health Sciences at City, University of London.
Niamh’s supervisory team are Professor Katerina Hilari, Professor Jane Marshall and Professor Stephanie Wilson.
Niamh Devane
Niamh is a senior specialist speech and language therapist who has spent the past seven years working in research on aphasia intervention projects. She has managed the EVA Park projects at City, University of London from the development of the technology (2012) to the first functional communication intervention trial (2013-2015) to the single case studies (2016) and the aphasia groups project (2017-1019). Thus, she has managed three complex intervention research projects from beginning to end. She has successfully recruited to a wide range of roles: participants, testing therapists, treating therapists, and students as either conversation partners, group volunteers or speech and language therapy assistants. She has developed intervention manuals. She has trained therapists, group leaders, student volunteers and people with aphasia to use the technology for this virtual reality platform. She has trained therapists to run the interventions developed in the EVA Park projects.
Before joining the research team at City, University of London Niamh worked in the stroke team at Whipps Cross Hospital.
Professor Katerina Hilari
Katerina is a Professor of Acquired Communication Disorders. She is a Speech and Language Therapist with a background in Psychology and she specialises in aphasia and the impact of aphasia on people’s lives. Katerina leads the Trials for Aphasia Panel of the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists and is on the Board of Trustees of Aphasia Re-Connect. Katerina joined City, University of London in 2002.
Katerina previously worked at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Professor Jane Marshall, OBE
Jane is a Professor of Aphasiology. She is a Speech and Language Therapist and her specialism is aphasia (language disorder following stroke and other forms of brain injury). Much of her current research is investigating technological applications in aphasia therapy. Jane teaches on all the Speech and Language Therapy and Speech and Language Sciences programmes within the School. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Aphasiology. In 2007 she won the Robin Tavistock Award for her work in Aphasia, and in 2009 was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
Before coming to City University she worked in the Aphasia Unit of Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup.
In 2018 Jane was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours list for services to aphasia.
Professor Stephanie Wilson
Stephanie is a Professor in Human-Computer Interaction and Co-Director of the Centre for HCI Design, a specialist research centre within the Department of Computer Science. Her research focuses on digital technologies for healthcare, creative and inclusive interaction design, user experience and technology enhanced learning. She is principal investigator for INCA, an EPSRC-funded project that is investigating digital content creation and curation tools for people with aphasia. She is also co-investigator on the EVA projects, funded by The Stroke Association and The Tavistock Trust for Aphasia, which are exploring accessible virtual worlds for people with aphasia.