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By Kate Hunger 

Associate Professor Fang-Ling Lu, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, has been named chair of the Department of Communications Sciences and Disorders, effective June 1. 

Lu joined the School of Health Professions in 2017 as founding program director of the five-semester speech-language pathology master’s program. The program welcomed its first cohort in the spring of 2018 and graduated its second cohort in May 2020. 

Lu most recently served as interim chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Before joining ������, Lu was on the faculty of the Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at the University of North Texas for 20 years, serving as program director of graduate studies for the speech-language pathology program for 12 years. 
She welcomed the challenge of creating the speech-language pathology program at ������ because of its mission to prepare students to work in medical settings. The program is the only graduate-level speech-language pathology program in Texas with a medical concentration, she said. 

“I think we are achieving that goal,” she said, noting that 50 students will have graduated from the program by this summer. 

In addition to continuing to provide an excellent education for future speech-language pathologists, Lu’s goals for the program include gaining recognition for the research of faculty members.