EHDI Consultants
NCHAM strives to meet the needs of EHDI Programs. We recognize that some EHDI Programs may need more individualized technical assistance than NCHAM can provide. Below are is a list of EHDI consultants that may be of service to you. These consultants are not affiliated with NCHAM and each consultant will determine their availability and fees.
| Name | Area of Expertise | Short Bio | Link to Bio/ Email Contact Form |
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Julie Beeler
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Julie Beeler is an audiologist and speech-language pathologist with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology in Knoxville, where she serves as a program liaison and handles outreach, promotions, and community relations. Julie is also an instructor in the Deaf Education Department at UT. From 2008 to early 2015, Julie served as the Audiology Consultant to Tennessee’s Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program and, prior to that, spent 13 years at UT Audiology and Speech as a clinical educator specializing in aural habilitation and cochlear implant programming. She also spent six years as an audiologist and speech-language pathologist in a rural school system. | |
Patricia Burk
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Patricia Burk, M.S., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT, is the Program/EHDI Coordinator for the Newborn Hearing Screening Program at the Oklahoma State Department of Health. She is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the program. She coordinates and monitors hearing equipment at Oklahoma birthing hospitals as well as most county health departments. Patricia helps to promote early identification, diagnosis, and amplification of children with hearing loss throughout the State of Oklahoma She also coordinates the Oklahoma Audiology Task force (OKAT). Patricia has experience as a Speech-Language Pathologist working with children and adults who have hearing loss. Patricia is a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist, Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist (LSLS Cert. AVT). She received her graduate training from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Patricia serves on the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing (JCIH) representing the Directors of Speech and Hearing Programs in State Health and Welfare Agencies (DSHPSHWA). | |
Terry E. Foust
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Dr. Terry Foust is a pediatric audiologist and speech language pathologist who serves as a consultant to the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management at Utah State University and was a former National Network member. He has been the primary consulting audiologist and team member for the Early Childhood Hearing Outreach (ECHO) project that developed and provided technical support for up-to-date hearing screening practices for Head Start and Early Head Start (as funded by the Office of Head Start).
Dr. Foust has significant international experience in developing hearing screening programs in countries such as Ghana, India, Egypt and most recently the country of Georgia. Dr. Foust is a committed advocate for parent and family choice in regards to intervention options for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children not only as a professional but as family member as well. In addition, he has developed several community health clinics dedicated to serving the low income and underserved populations including having had a primary leadership role in the development of all of the school based health centers in Utah. He has a deep understanding of the importance of collaborations among providers of services in health and educational arenas. In 2006, Dr. Foust received the Larry Mauldin Award for Excellence in Education from the American Academy of Audiology. He is also a contributing author for “A Resource Guide for Early Hearing Detection and Intervention“, accessed thru infanthearing.org. |
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Linda Hazard
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Dr. Linda Hazard, is the Program Director for VTEHDI and the Executive Director for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program at Nine East Network. She earned her audiology degree from Boston University and a doctorate in Leadership and Social Policy from the University of Vermont. Linda has been with the Vermont EHDI program since 2009 and with Nine East Network since 2019. She served as a consultant for National Center for Assessment and Management (NCHAM) and as the Region 1 Network Coordinator. Linda is one of the Co- President of the Directors of Speech and Hearing Programs in State Health and Welfare Programs (DSHPSHWA). Additionally, she was appointed by ASHA to the Medicaid Committee and the Health Reform and APM committee. Linda has presented both nationally and internationally and has published several articles. In February of 2017 she received the prestigious Antonia Brancia Maxon Award for EHDI Excellence and published a chapter for the EHDI I book on qualitative research. | |
Thomas Horejes
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Thomas Horejes, Ph.D. has decades of academic, professional, and personal experience in early intervention including advocacy, legal analysis, and program development/assessment. He takes great passion doing research & development on local/state/national EHDI efforts. He was former Keynote plenary presenter for the 2018 EHDI Conference.
He is current Director for Legal Compliance & Advocacy for Convo Communications and former Executive Director of Deaf Empowerment Awareness Foundation (DEAF, Inc.), a non-profit organization dedicated to empower, raise Awareness, and bridge a sustainable Foundation of advocacy, communication and accessibility for the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, DeafBlind, and the Hearing communities. Tommy currently serves on the Board for Deaf Youth Sports Foundation (dysf.org) and Vice Chair of Maryland Department of Health’s Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Advisory Council. |
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Vicki Hunting
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A Senior Quality Improvement Advisor, Project and Program Leader with experience planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about successful completion of project goals and objectives while honoring project constraints to customers worldwide across several industries. Working knowledge/experience managing a newborn hearing screening program, federal reporting requirements and family support organization establishment. Additional experience in use of the Model for Improvement/PDSA cycles, creating process and relationship maps, providing organizational support for performance (goal setting, progress review, and communication) data management/reporting, quality improvement and evaluation activities. Excellent organization, communication, and interpersonal relationship skills at all organizational levels. I have a passion for quality and ensuring families receive the highest quality of services, I believe this is accomplished through family centered care and education. | |
Stacy Jordan
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Stacy has been involved in various aspects of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) since 2001. Her experiences range from establishing and managing a hospital based screening program, clinical work for a state-wide public health program screening children birth-eight, data base development, implementation and training, as well as, education, training and collaboration with various community partners (Early Head Start, Primary Care, Midwives, hospitals, audiologist). She has worked on various projects with NCHAM over the years including: Early Childhood Hearing Outreach (ECHO), Newborn Hearing Screening Training Curriculum, CMV Conference and others. | |
Karen Markuson Ditty
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Dr. Ditty is a pediatric audiologist with extensive experience and expertise in Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) programs. Her career spans over 35 years and includes initiating newborn hearing screening programs in hospitals nationwide. She initiated hearing aid legislation, participated in EHDI program evaluations, and trained Midwives on screening in Texas. Dr. Ditty has been associated with NCHAM for more than 20 years. She was the coordinator of the NCHAM national pediatric audiology diagnostic workshops and served as a member of the Technical Assistance Network over a decade. Dr. Ditty works on a variety of projects related to early childhood screening and pediatric audiology, such as the Newborn Hearing Screening Training Curriculum and issues related to program quality, financing, and sustainability. She has authored and contributed to publications related to EHDI, as well as presented extensively at local, national, and international forums on numerous topics related to EHDI. | |
Tony Ronco
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Tony Ronco M.S., P.E. by trade & education is an Engineering Manager specializing in process improvement. He is also a Father, a Husband and a Professional Engineer. He and his wife Jenny are the proud parents of son Austin, who is hearing, and of their daughter Dakota, who is Deaf. Tony has a long history of family engagement with families who have DHH children. He has been deeply involved in Parent to Parent Support Groups and Organizations, including Hands & Voices (H&V-HQ), California chapter of H&V (CA-H&V), American Society of Deaf Children (ASDC), and IMPACT.
Tony’s personal passions are seeing state EHDI programs become empowered to run as effectively as pragmatically possible, and that all DHH children will arrive at school with a level of Kindergarten Readiness that is comparable to their hearing peers. |
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Les R. Schmeltz
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Dr. Schmeltz is an adjunct Associate Professor in the audiology program at A. T. Still University in Mesa. For 15 years at ATSU, he taught classes in educational audiology, ethics, professional roles, assistive listening devices and early hearing detection and intervention. Prior to joining ATSU, he was an educational audiologist in Iowa for 32 years, specializing in providing services to children between 0 and 5 years of age. Dr. Schmeltz has been actively involved in EHDI activities for over 25 years. He is editor of the EHDI eBook and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention for the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management. Dr. Schmeltz is a Past-President of the Educational Audiology Association. He has written and presented extensively on topics related to pediatric audiology, ethics and early hearing detection and intervention. | |
| Elizabeth Seeliger |
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Elizabeth Seeliger, AuD, has been a leader in the field of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention for nearly two decades. Elizabeth is the first EHDI program director/audiologist to graduate from the UW-Madison’s Infant, Early Childhood and Family Mental Health Advanced Clinical Practice Certificate Program and has prioritized the parent child relationship in much of her work, including the co-creation of the first Guide By Your Side Program. Elizabeth has sat on the board of directors for the WI Chapter of Families for Hands & Voices and Hands & Voices HQ. Elizabeth is the Wisconsin Sound Beginnings Program Director and has worked as a clinical audiologist in a variety of settings, helping guide children and families through the process of hearing loss diagnosis and intervention.
Elizabeth founded Global Impact Audiology to provide, education, training, technical assistance and consultation locally and internationally on infant mental health and EHDI, quality improvement in EHDI systems, and pediatric audiology, including establishing the first tele-audiology program in the Pacific Islands. |
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Erika Shakespeare
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Erika Shakespeare, CCC-A is a licensed audiologist that has served as a consultant for Oregon, Idaho and Washington EHDI programs through the NCHAM Network since 2006. She has coordinated and run numerous professional trainings for audiologists, teachers of the deaf, part C providers and speech language pathologists in the area of EHDI. She was the former Audiology Program Coordinator for the Idaho Elks Hearing and Balance Centers with St. Luke's Health Systems. She owns and operates a private practice serving pediatric through adult patients in a rural community. | |
Randi Winston-Gerson
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Randi consults on a variety of EHDI related projects with the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management (NCHAM) and various other state EHDI programs. In addition, she serves as adjunct assistant professor at A.T. Still University. Prior to that she worked at Audiology Systems as Hearing Screening Program Manager from 2015-2018.
From 1998– 2015 she maintained the role of consulting audiologist for The EAR Foundation of Arizona and Arizona's EHDI Program which included the implementation of newborn hearing and early childhood screening programs. The emphasis of her work included on program quality, systems development and best practices. During that time she served on NCHAM’s Technical Assistance Network, assisting states in Region X. Randi maintains her role as program manager on NCHAM’s Newborn Hearing Screening Training Curriculum (NHSTC) project and the EHDI-PALS program. She has co-authored several research articles involving newborn and early childhood screening. Randi holds doctorate of audiology, is state licensed in Arizona and a member of AAA, ASHA and the ArSHA. She also serves as director of the Arizona Special Olympics Healthy Hearing Program. |
