PEOPLE
A Collaborative & Diverse Group
Our people are at the core of what makes the LSU-COMD Laryngeal Imaging Lab such a unique and fulfilling place to work. We’re proud of the diversity of our staff, with each member contributing their unique skills to the projects we’re working on. Together, we’ve planned and executed innovative and cutting edge experiments. Find out more about our team members below.
MELDA KUNDUK PH.D., CCC-SLP
Lab Director
Dr. Kunduk joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (LSU-COMD) in Baton Rouge in 2006. She is also an adjunct faculty at the LSU Health Sciences Center/Department of Otolaryngology –Head and Neck Surgery and The Our Lady of The Lake Regional Medical Center –Voice Center. She teaches the graduate courses on voice and resonance disorders, dysphagia, cleft palate and a graduate level seminar in the area of voice and swallowing disorders. She is the Director of the Laryngeal Imaging Research Laboratory, which is located within the Department.Her research focus is to further the assessment and treatment techniques of voice and swallowing disorders in clinical practice. In the area of voice, she investigates the vocal fold vibratory function using High-Speed Digital Videoendoscopy (HSV) in normal and disordered voices. The HSV allows objective quantification of current endoscopic voice parameters and has the potential to introduce new ones to advance the study of vocal function. In the area of dysphagia, she investigates the effects of behavioral treatment on swallowing function following head and neck cancer treatment modalities. She also interested in developing clinician and/or patient friendly analyses and therapeutic tools in order to aid the assessments and treatment of voice and swallowing disorders. To achieve her research goals, Dr. Kunduk established a multidisciplinary research team consisting of experts within and outside the discipline of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Her research team that includes local and international collaborators, who have backgrounds in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Sciences, and Medicine (Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Laryngology).
TAKESHI IKUMA PH.D
Collaborator
Dr. Ikuma joined the lab in 2012 as a post-doctoral fellow. Dr. Ikuma who is an electrical engineer with expertise in image processing had no prior knowledge in voice disorders/vocal fold vibration and speech and language pathology, until he started working in the lab. We worked extensively to address the limitations of the practical use of HSV in a clinic setting and to develop HSV specific voice parameters. We established an image-processing tool that allows rapid overview of the massive HSV data.  We also developed objective and quantitative HSV parameters to evaluate vocal function in the clinical setting and developed a software program that is currently in use in my lab and has been shared for use in another research lab utilizing HSV data. As a result of this work with Dr. Ikuma, our research lab published 9 papers in peer reviewed journals and presented our research at 10 national and international conferences since 2012. We continue our collaborative work to make HSV a clinically viable tool in assessment of vocal fold function.
ROBIN SAMLAN PH.D., CCC-SLP
Collaborator
Dr. Samlan’s has had a great experience and success in initiating new line of research, carrying it out and disseminating its results at notional and international conferences in the areas of laryngeal and voice disorders.Her contribution to voice research includes the use of kinematic computational model to study the how vocal fold vibration patterns are related to acoustic measures of voice and perceived voice quality.She continues working with several computational models and high speed videoendoscopy to deepen the understanding of how vocal fold vibration, supraglottal vocal tract shape, glottal flow, and acoustic signal properties influence perceived voice quality. Dr. Samlan and I collaborated to investigate the differences in measures of glottal area timing and regularity between older adults with and without Age-Related Dysphonia (ARD) using high-speed videoendoscopy technique which is just accepted for publication. I very much look forward to continuing to work with Dr. Samlan in the future as a consulted on her recently awarded NIH-R21 award.
WITOON PRINYAWIWATUKUL PH.D.
Collaborator
Dr. Witoon is a Horace J. Davis Endowed Professor at LSU- School of Nutrition and Food Sciences with more than 170 peer-reviewed journals and several books publications. Our overall research goal is to improve swallowing function and quality of life outcomes for HNC patients undergoing rad +/- chemo. Collaborative work between Dr.Kunduk, LSU-COMD and a food scientist Dr. Prinyawiwatkul (Horace J. Davis Endowed Professor, LSU-School od Nutrution and Food Sciences) aims to produce a supplemental food that addresses the limitations of currently available supplements to head amd neck cancer patients.
ANDREW J. MCWHORTER M.D.
Co-Investigator
Dr. McWhorter is a laryngologist and expert in laryngeal cancer. He is a professor at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, New Orleans. He earned his degree in medicine from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland where he also performed his internship in general surgery and his residency in otolaryngology – head and neck surgery. Dr. McWhorter did his Fellowship training in laryngology and care of the professional voice at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tn. He is a the Director of the OLOL-Voice Center in Baton Rouge.Dr. Kunduk and Dr. McWhorter have been working together since Dr. Kunduk joined him in New Orleans after completing her doctoral program in Madison, Wisconsin with Dr. Diane Bless in 2004.
ALUMNI
ANEESHA VIRANI PH.D-CCC-SLP
Dr. Virani is an alumni of LIL and earned her doctoral degree in 2012. Her research interests lied in the areas of swallowing and voice disorders. Her dissertation focused on investigating the impact of prophylactic behavioral swallowing exercises on swallowing physiology, function, quality-of-life and weight outcomes in patients undergoing chemoradiation therapies for head and neck cancers. This research was conducted through our affiliation with the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center in Baton Rouge. Her work was published in Journal of Head & Neck titled
Virani A*,. Kunduk M., Fink D., McWhorter AJ. Effects of Two Different Swallowing Exercise Regimens During Organ-Preservation Therapies for Head and Neck Cancers on Swallowing Function. Head Neck. 2015 Feb; 37(2):162-70. doi: 10.1002/hed.23570.
JING CHEN PH.D
Jing Chen earned her doctoral degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Louisiana State University in 2014. Her research interest was image processing and pattern recognition. Dr.Chen worked on image segmentation and feature extraction of vocal fold videos captured by High Speed Videoendoscopy while she was working in the lab. Her dissertation titled
COMPLETE LIST OF LIL ALUMNI
•Deirdre Larson MA independent study, 2016
•Siddharth Reddy Tadiparthi, 2015
LSU-Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 2015
•Manoj Takkallpally, 2015
LSU-Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 2015
•Lindsey Parker, MA Thesis, 2015
•Jing Chen, Ph.D, 2014
•Aimee Lott , MA Thesis, 2013
•Stefanie Hayes, MA Thesis, 2013
•Moi Arriaga, 2012 (undergraduate student visitor, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island).
•Aneesha Virani Ph.D., CCC-SLP, 2012
•Zhenyi Wei Ph.D. 2012, LSU-Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
•Allison Gish, MA Thesis, 2011
•Richi Sajan MA Thesis, 2010 LSU-Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,
•Rebecca LeBlanc MA Thesis, 2009
•Brittney Durand MA Thesis, 2008
•Aimee Bonnette, MA Thesis, 2007
LIL AND ITS COLLABORATING CENTERS
LSUHSC-Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery
OLOL-Voice Center
Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center
LSU-Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
LSU-Department Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Department of Computer Science Medical Informatics Trier, Germany
University Hospital Erlangen, Medical School , Department of Phoniatrics and Pediatric Audiology, Erlangen, Germany
University of Arizona, Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, Tucson
LSU-School of Nutrition and Food Sciences
LIL VOLUNTEERS
Unlocking the Mysteries of Science
KATHERINE BEYER
Katherine joined the lab in May 2018. She is a sophomore at LSU-COMD Undergraduate Program. She has been an outstanding contributor to the data collection, data organization and data analyses to our work at The Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center-Voice Center and Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. She is involved in the prospectus research that currently investigating the effects of behavioral swallowing intervention on swallowing function in head and neck.Katherine hopes to get a Master's in Speech Language Pathology after graduating. She loves to spend time with her family of eight, and she enjoys knitting, reading, and playing the harp.
DANIEL HEBER
Daniel is a senior at LSU-COMD Undergraduate Program. He joined our lab in May 2018. Daniel has been a wonderful and hard worker in helping us with our ongoing research at The Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center-Voice Center and Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. He has been instrumental in data collection in studies that investigates the changes in swallowing function in head and neck cancer patients undergoing organ preservation treatment modalities (radiation with or without chemotherapy). Daniel is currently pursuing a degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders with an emphasis in Audiology. Over the course of his tenure at university, he has assisted and participated in several research projects, which has stemmed a genuine interest in the field of research. As an audiologist, he hopes to use the research skills that he has learned and developed here along with his clinical practice in order to optimize his ability to improve the lives of the patients that he will have.
WOULD LIKE TO VOLUNTEER FOR LIL?
Please contact Dr.Kunduk at
mkunduk @lsu.edu. We would love to have you in our lab.
Want to learn more about our research projects?