Mysuru: Prof. M. Pushpavathi took over as the Director of   the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysuru, yesterday. She succeeds Dr. S.R. Savithri. Hailing from Mysuru and an alumnus of AIISH, Prof. Pushpavathi joined as a faculty in the year 1996 and was currently working as Professor, Department of Speech Language Pathology and was also heading the Department of Special Education.

She carries with her 22 years of experience, as a faculty out of which she served ten years as Heads of four major Departments of AIISH — Clinical Services, Speech Language Pathology, Tele-centre for Persons with Communication Disorders and Special Education.

She had also served as Academic Co-ordinator of the institute for two years.

Prof. Pushpavathi holds her Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing from University of Mysore (UoM). She made an outstanding contribution to persons with disability through starting an exclusive unit for providing integrated services to persons with cleft lip and palate, which is the first ever unit of such kind in the country. She is currently serving as the Chairperson of this Unit for Structural Orofacial Anomalies (USOFA) and was instrumental in developing the state-of-the-art clinical services through this unit.

She strongly believes in interdisciplinary approach in rehabilitation of persons with communication disorders. Her main area of interest is in the disorders of speech specifically speech disorders related to orofacial anomalies and voice disorders.  

At present, she is guiding the projects and doctoral students in the area related to speech characteristics of persons with cleft lip and palate. Her research output is significant with 8 International, 24 National, 13 International conference and 19 National Conference publications to her credit.

Known for her productive relationship with patients, care-givers, students and public, after taking charge, Prof. Pushpavathi  mentioned that her dream is to make AIISH a one-stop destination for all the needy persons with communication disorders in the country. She felt that this is achievable with the support of the dedicated and experienced colleagues at AIISH.