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Maria Dietrich, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Post-Doctoral Scholar
Communication Sciences and Disorders

Maria Dietrich is a Post-Doctoral Scholar in the Division of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, under the mentorship of Dr. Joseph Stemple. Dr. Dietrich completed her Ph.D. in Communication Science and Disorders in 2009 at the University of Pittsburgh with Dr. Katherine Verdolini Abbott. Leading up to her Ph.D., she received a M.A. degree in Speech Language Pathology in 2003 from Kent State University, OH, and a degree in Diplom-Heilpädagogik in 2001 from Universität zu Köln in Germany.

Research Interests

Dr. Dietrich’s training and experience is in psychobiological aspects of voice production with a focus on clinical voice science. Her program of research is the investigation of neurobiological and psychobiological processes involved in modulating vocal functioning in vocally healthy individuals. Her research focuses on individual differences in vocal behavior as a function of personality and psychological stress. Ultimately, the research hopes to inform education and prevention programs as well as treatment approaches for patients with voice disorders. To that end, Dr. Dietrich and her mentors in the College of Health Sciences, Drs. Stemple and Andreatta, have received funding from the UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) and UK Magnetic Resonance and Spectroscopy Center (MRISC) to complete a study titled “The Central Control of Vocalization as a Function of Personality and Stress Reactivity.”

Clinical

Dr. Dietrich has completed her Clinical Fellowship Year at the University of Pittsburgh Voice Center under the mentorship of Dr. Jackie Gartner-Schmidt. She holds the ASHA Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology since 2004.

Awards

• 2010: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA’s) Research Mentoring-Pair Travel Award (RMPTA) in conjunction with ASHA’s 20th Annual Research Symposium “Neuroplasticity in the Mature Brain” held at the ASHA Convention, Philadelphia, PA. Mentor: Joseph C. Stemple, Ph.D., CCC-SLP 2010
• 2010: New Investigator Research Forum Award, The Voice Foundation, 39th Annual Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, “The Neural Control of Vocalization as a Function of Personality and Stress”
• 2010: Conference fellowship-travel award for the 8th Lessons for Success Research Conference: Developing the Emerging Scientist, held at American Speech-Language-Hearing-Association (ASHA) headquarters, Rockville, Maryland, sponsored by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation (ASHF)
• 2010: Third prize in best non-faculty talk competition at the 3rd Annual University of Kentucky Cognitive Science Symposium
• 2008: Bruce Baker Education Travel Fund award, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
• 2008: Travel award to the 1st International Conference on Advances in Laryngeal Biophysiology (ICALB), Madison, Wisconsin
• 2007: Partial tuition scholarship for the first Summer Institute in Communication Sciences and Disorders sponsored by the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CAPCSD), the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), and the ASHFoundation.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Dietrich, M., Jiang, Yang, Andreatta, R. D., Joshi, A., & Stemple, J. C. (under review). Neuroticism and introversion modulate limbic and sensorimotor brain responses during sentence reading.
• Stemple, J.C., & Dietrich, M. (under review). When the voice ages: disorders, risk factors and socioemotional effects. Logopedie.
• Stemple, J. C., & Dietrich, M. (in press). For your vocal health: keeping the mature voice healthy. In D. Knight (Ed.), A World of Voice: Voice and Speech Trainers Association.
• Dietrich, M., & Verdolini Abbott, K. (in press). Vocal function in introverts and extraverts during a psychological stress reactivity protocol. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
• McMullen, C.A., Butterfield, T.A., Dietrich, M., Andreatta, R.D., Andrade, F.H., Fry, L.T., & Stemple, J.C. (2011). Chronic stimulation-induced changes in the rodent thyroarytenoid muscle. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 54(3), 845-853.
• Dietrich, M., Verdolini Abbott, K., Gartner-Schmidt, J., & Rosen C.A. (2008). The frequency of perceived stress, anxiety, and depression in patients with common pathologies affecting voice. Journal of Voice, 22(4), 472-488.

Invited Book Chapters

• Dietrich, M. & Andreatta, R.D. (2011). The applications of surface electromyography to assess stressor-evoked changes in extralaryngeal functioning. In: E. P.-M. Ma & E. M.-L. Yiu (Eds.), Handbook of Voice Assessments (pp. 185-201). San Diego: Plural Publishing.
• Dietrich, M. (2009). Balancing vocal function after surgery for unilateral vocal fold paralysis. In J.C Stemple & L. Thomas Fry (Eds.), Voice therapy: Clinical case studies (3rd ed., pp. 180-187). San Diego: Plural Publishing.
• Dietrich, M. & Verdolini Abbott, K. (2008). Psychobiological framework of stress and voice: A psychobiological framework for studying psychological stress and its relation to voice disorders. In: K. Izdebski (Ed.), Emotions in the Human Voice (Vol.II, Clinical Evidence, pp. 159-178). San Diego: Plural Publishing.
• Dietrich, M. & Marsland, A. (2008). Autonomic dysfunction. In: D. Walsh (Ed.). Palliative Medicine (1s ed., pp. 1319-1323). Philadelphia: Elsevier.

Grant Funding

UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) and UK Magnetic Resonance and Spectroscopy Center (MRISC) Pilot Research Programs

Title of study: “The Central Control of Vocalization as a Function of Personality and Stress Reactivity.”

Investigators: PI Richard Andreatta, Ph.D., Co-PI Maria Dietrich, Ph.D., Co-Investigators: Joseph Stemple, Ph.D., Yang Jiang, Ph.D, Jens Pruessner, Ph.D.

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