Nancy Helms-Estabrooks, professor emerita of communication disorders at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, is the recipient of the 2012 Frank R. Kleffner Lifetime Clinical Career Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She was presented the award at the association’s annual meeting in Atlanta. Her research centers on aphasia, a language disorder that is caused by a brain injury. From July 2011 to August 2012, she was the leader of the team overseeing the language therapy program of former congressional representative Gabby Giffords who received a bullet wound to the head in Tuscon in January 2011.
Dr. Helms-Estabrooks joined the West Carolina University faculty in 2009 and served as the inaugural holder of the Catherine Brewer Smith Distinguished Professor of Communication Disorders. Previously, she was a research professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill and a clinical investigator at the Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center at the Boston University School of Medicine.
Dr. Helms-Estabrooks is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree from Northeastern University and a doctor of science degree from Boston University.