Cara Stepp, Junior Faculty Fellow, Receives NSF CAREER Award
Cara Stepp, Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellow and assistant professor of biomedical engineering and speech, language and hearing sciences, and Douglas Holmes, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science & engineering, have won the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award in recognition of their outstanding research and teaching capabilities. As a result, the Stepp and Holmes will get more than $1 million to fund their research and educational goals. Stepp became a Junior Faculty Fellow at the Hariri Institute in 2014 and has since focused her research on the quantitative assessment of voice and speech function and the use of engineering tools to rehabilitate disordered sensorimotor function. Stepp will use the funding from her award to improve solutions for communication impairments for severely paralyzed individuals by developing new technology and engaging students at Boston University (BU) to help find these solutions.