Board Member
Michelle R Ciucci, PhD, CCC-SLP, is a Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Department of Surgery-Division of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, and a faculty member in the Neuroscience Training Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). Dr. Ciucci received her doctorate from the University of Arizona and completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Texas at Austin and then in Otolaryngology at the UW. Her area of research interest is sensorimotor control of voice and swallowing and the neurobiology of disease with an emphasis on Parkinson disease. Dr. Ciucci’s research program is focused on the neural substrates for normal and disordered cranial motor function and how interventions affect brain and behavior. In addition to this neuroscience work, Dr. Ciucci also studies the complexities of swallowing function with high resolution manometry. The overarching goal of this line of work is to better understand swallowing physiology and improve diagnosis and treatment of swallowing disorders.
At the UW, Dr. Ciucci runs an active lab, collaborates with many researchers at the UW and other institutions, and teaches two main courses: The Neural Basis of Communication (undergraduate) and Swallowing Disorders (Graduate-Master’s Speech-Language Pathology). She also is very active in the Dysphagia Research Society. Dr. Ciucci practiced as a Speech-Language Pathologist for a number of years. In addition to these activities, Dr. Ciucci has been the President of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Parkinson Disease Association for 4 years. Dr. Ciucci joined the board of the NFOSD in 2013.