Patricia Prelock, Ph.D., has been appointed dean of the University of Vermont College of Nursing and Health Sciences, succeeding Dr. Betty Rambur.
Prelock, who began serving in her new role on July 1, 2009, joined the UVM faculty in 1994. A certified speech-language pathologist and a board-recognized child language specialist, she previously served as professor and chair of communication sciences at UVM and was the training director for Vermont’s Interdisciplinary Leadership Education for Health Professionals (VT-ILEHP) Program, which is housed at UVM. She continues to serve as co-principal investigator for the VT-ILEHP Autism Spectrum Disorders Program. She is also project director for Vermont’s State Improvement Grant Speech-Language Pathologist Distance Education Initiative. Since coming to UVM, Prelock has served as principal investigator, co-principal investigator or faculty sponsor for training and research grants totaling more than $8.5 million. Her primary research interests include collaborative, interdisciplinary practice, and the nature and treatment of autism including the use of social stories to facilitate social perspective taking, peer play, emotion regulation, parent training and the neural pathways involved in social discourse.. Prelock is the recipient of a 1998 Friends Award from the former Vermont Parent Information Center and received UVM’s Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award and the first annual Autism Society of Vermont Excellence in Service Award in 2000. In 2003, she was named a University Scholar at UVM. Prelock has 105 publications and 357 peer-reviewed and invited presentations in the areas of autism, collaboration, language assessment and intervention, and phonology.
A resident of Colchester, Prelock served as associate editor for Language Speech Hearing Services in Schools, was named an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association fellow in 2000, and currently serves as Vice President for Standards and Ethics in Speech-Language Pathology, a Board of Directors position for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She also co-chairs Vermont’s statewide Autism Task Force and is a member of the Workgroup for the Autism Training Program through the Higher Education Collaborative. Prelock earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Kent State University and her doctoral degree from the University of Pittsburgh.