Maura Mullen

Maura Mullen (she/her), MS, CCC-SLP, is a Ph.D. student in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Boston University. Originally from Chicago, Maura completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and received her M.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Rush University Medical Center. Her master’s thesis, which examined the impact of deep brain stimulation on motor speech in Parkinson’s disease, sparked her passion for advancing the field of speech-language pathology through research, with a particular focus on neurodegenerative disease. She worked as an acute care speech-language pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she further developed her clinical skills through a patient-centered and collaborative approach. Her clinical experiences have continued to shape her research interests and clinical questions surrounding airway protection, cough, and swallowing in Parkinson’s disease, as well as the underlying neuromechanisms and potential for motor learning to improve function and quality of life.