Catriona M. Steele, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BCS-S, S-LP(C), Reg. CASLPO, ASHA Honors, F-ESSDDr. Catriona M. Steele is the Director of the Swallowing Rehabilitation Research Laboratory at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. She also teaches in the Graduate Department of Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Toronto. Prior to completing her Ph.D., Dr. Steele worked as a medical speech-language pathologist for 10 years. Professor Steele is known for her commitment to pursuing theoretically driven research that will underpin clinical interventions with sound empirical evidence. She has received particular recognition for her work on tongue function in swallowing. Professor Steele currently holds research funding from the National Institutes of Health in the United States. Previous funding has come from the the Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery (www.canadianstroke.ca/en/), the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Ontario Centres of Excellence. She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. Professor Steele is in demand as a teacher around the world.She currently serves as President of the Dysphagia Research Society. She was a founding member of the International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative and served as a board member from 2012-2023..In November 2012, she was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contributions. In April 2016, Professor Steele was awarded Speech-Language Audiology Canada’s Lifetime achievement award. In July, 2024 she was awarded Honors of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association and in September, 2024 she was inducted as a Fellow of the European Society of Swallowing Disorders (ESSD).Specialties: Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders; Speech-Language Pathology