Roles & Affiliations: Assistant Clinical Professor (Adjunct), Rehabilitation Science and PhD Candidate at McMaster University; Speech-Language Pathologist
Membership Type: Trainee Member
Supervisorship Status: Open availability, preferably for students with some prior research experience and at Master’s or undergraduate level:
“I am open to connecting with students who share similar research interests to me. I do not have specific opportunities at this time but am happy to hear about their interests and what we can collaborate on.”
If interested, please connect with Maya Albin.
Bio
Bio
Maya Albin is a MacART trainee. Maya is a speech-language pathologist and PhD student at McMaster University’s School of Rehabilitation Science under the supervision of Dr. Michelle Phoenix. Maya’s research focuses on improving communication support for Autistic people and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Maya continues to work as a SLP in various settings while completing her PhD. Her dissertation research focuses on co-designing improved social communication supports for, and with, Autistic youth.
Current Focus Areas
Current Focus Areas
- Maya’s current focus is her dissertation project, which is a qualitative study using co-design to co-create a new approach to social communication support for autistic youth and people close to them.
- Presentation from CHILD-BRIGHT Pre-conference Talks – Day 2 where you can learn more: https://youtu.be/lcyJ0DjtCBo?t=5510
- Maya is also supervising several student research projects on various areas of autism research (e.g., peer support programs for people with intellectual disabilities, understanding experiences of distress and their relationship with communication).
Career Highlights
Career Highlights
- Clinically, Maya continues to work with Autistic children, youth, and adults in various capacities. As a speech-language pathologist, most of her current practice focuses on delivering neurodiversity-affirming social communication services for Autistic people. Outside of her work as a SLP, she continues to oversee vocational education programs at a large overnight camping organization, and continues to run virtual and in-person leadership training events for Autistic adults and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.
- One recent publication from Maya’s autism research is a paper applying the WHO-ICF to SLP social communication interventions: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13623613251390609. She is proud of the wonderful team of researchers, Autistic youth, and Autistic adults who she gets to work with as part of her thesis study. Autistic people have been involved as integral team members from project inception and have helped create all aspects of Maya’s team’s study.