Summary: Bernadette Mayfield-Clarke has taken office as the 2025 president of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).
Takeaways:
- Mayfield-Clarke aims to address transformative changes in learning, work, and collaboration by leveraging automation and technology to create inclusive, adaptive, and diverse workplaces.
- Her 2025 mantra emphasizes recognizing bold and innovative contributions in communication sciences and disorders.
- With a distinguished academic and professional career, Mayfield-Clarke brings extensive expertise from roles in clinical practice, academia, and research, including her work at Nova Southeastern University and North Carolina A&T.
Bernadette Mayfield-Clarke, PhD, CCC-SLP, took office this month as the 2025 president of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).
“At a very special time for ASHA—2025 is its Centennial—I am very grateful and excited to serve as its president,” Mayfield-Clarke says. “During this year, I plan to focus on transformative change impacting learning, work, and other areas key to ASHA members. It is critical to stay abreast of automation and technological advancements and use them in ways that include converting workplaces into communities that are collaborative, adaptive, and foster exchanges from diverse backgrounds and cultures.”
Currently, Mayfield-Clarke provides clinical services and consulting through a private practice that specializes in speech-language pathology services that meet the needs of employees in government and corporations whose primary language is not English.
“My mantra for 2025 is to highlight individuals, professionals, and programs in communication sciences and disorders that are taking bold, brave, different, and daring steps that are already impactful and will continue to be,” she says.
Mayfield-Clarke earned a PhD and a master’s degree in human communication sciences and disorders from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She earned a bachelor of science degree from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Mayfield-Clarke has held positions in the delivery of school-based, contractual, clinical, and health care services. At Nova Southeastern University in the College of Health Care Sciences, she served as a professor for two programs—the Master of Science program and the Doctor of Speech-Language Pathology program.
She was a program director and associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Arts and Sciences—as well as in Speech Communication and Speech/Language Pathology and Audiology—at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (North Carolina A&T), an HBCU in Greensboro, North Carolina.
In addition, she has served as a peer reviewer for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act/American with Disabilities Act panel of the U.S Department of Education. She was also selected as a visiting scholar at the Council on International Educational Exchange in Salvador Bahia, Brazil.
