Seton Hall Professor Anthony Koutsoftas Named 2026 ASHA Fellow by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Anthony Koutsoftas, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, an associate professor in Seton Hall University’s Department of Speech-Language Pathology, is a recipient of this year’s American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Fellowship of the Association. It is one of the highest honors the association bestows.

Koutsoftas will receive the award at ASHA’s annual convention, held November 19–21 in Indianapolis.

According to ASHA, the fellowship honors members who have “made outstanding contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders.” To be nominated, individuals must be sponsored by professionals in the field who attest to the nominee’s accomplishments. Koutsoftas was recognized for his contributions in clinical education and academic teaching in speech-language pathology; research; and service and leadership.

“The ASHA Fellow award is a great honor within the profession. Anthony's contributions to the field of speech-language pathology have been outstanding and he is more than deserving of this award. Seton Hall is blessed to have him as a faculty member and mentor to our students,” said Jayne Brandel, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, dean of Seton Hall’s School of Health and Medical Sciences.

Koutsoftas has been a practicing speech-language pathologist since 2001. He teaches a variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Seton Hall. His teaching style combines application-based assignments, group work and real-world examples that encourage students to approach different treatment strategies and techniques in a critical, evidence-based manner.

“My biggest motivation is that I want to make the profession better. We're a young profession compared to a lot of other disciplines and I love what we do in our approach to clients as a whole person,” Koutsoftas said.

One of Koutsoftas’ major research-based contributions is Project WILLD, an intervention that targets improving writing outcomes for students with language-based learning disabilities.

“I'm most proud of Project WILLD … because we were able to develop a curriculum that people are using and in need of,” he said.

In 2020, Seton Hall’s Department of Speech-Language Pathology received a $1.4 million federal grant to develop Project WILLD. Koutsoftas and his colleagues have presented it at multiple conferences in the United States and overseas.

He has also headed multiple professional development seminars. “When I'm teaching a professional development seminar, these are practitioners that are in schools needing to teach literacy,” he said. “When I can provide a workshop like that, where people are really engaged to move it forward, I get really excited about that.”

Koutsoftas said that his biggest contribution to the area of service and leadership is being co-editor in chief of Seminars in Speech and Language. “I really like being an editor of a peer-reviewed journal,” he said. “I get to work with … a lot of younger, newer people who want to get good information out there.”

He is also an advisor at Seton Hall, where he guides speech-language pathology students in their academics and beyond. One area is guiding them in the creation of their portfolios, which they present at the end of their second graduate year. “I love when we have our portfolio presentations and I get to just listen,” he said. “I get to see how they've developed and grown."

In the classroom, Koutsoftas combines his passion for the field of speech-language pathology with his passion for the arts. This year, he incorporated a new improvisation curriculum, “IMPROVing Patient Outcomes,” into the program. “The purpose of this module is to engage in improvisational (improv) techniques to build communication skills and shape these techniques for clinical practice,” he wrote. The curriculum includes different activities that help students think on their feet and practice responding to any prompt.

When asked what he wants students to take away from this curriculum, he said, “This is a safe place to make mistakes. Mistakes are encouraged. Mistakes are one of the best ways we can learn. And in a module like this, make the mistakes now.”

Caryn Grabowski, M.S., CCC-SLP, Seton Hall’s speech-language pathology chair and program director, is one of the professionals who sponsored Koutsoftas’ nomination for ASHA Fellow.

“Dr. Koutsoftas exemplifies the characteristics of those members of the profession recognized for their aspirational contributions,” she said. “His work in clinical education and academic teaching has had an enduring impact on students, on professional preparation for school-based practice and on the advancement of literacy-focused training within communication sciences and disorders.”

Categories: Education, Health and Medicine