Won by Luca Carozza from Italy

Passing It Forward

Gisele Oliveira was an extraordinary, young, professional figure and human being, a dear member of The Voice Foundation who died at the age of 45 after a battle with aggressive cancer.  In her honor, and in recognition of her deep love and dedication to her SLP students, her husband, Gaetano Fava is creating the GISELE OLIVEIRA AWARD for best master’s level SLP student presentation at The Voice Foundation’s 45th Annual Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice, in Philadelphia, PA, USA, to be held from June 1-5, 2016.

The Voice Foundation Symposium will be awarding a Gisele Oliveira Award of $500 to a SLP Master’s Level student presenting at the Annual Symposium.  If you or your student is interested in applying, we would appreciate it if you could please send an letter of intent responding to the following questions (as appropriate), and send it to Maria Russo at [email protected] . Please send this all in one PDF:

• Is your accepted paper/poster derived from a Master’s Thesis, or academic independent study? Yes/No (This is not a determining factor in the judging)
• If yes, please provide a detailed description of your role (the student’s role) in the overall project, as well as a description of the role of any other collaborators (including his/her advisor).
• Include the title of your presentation.
• Submit a copy of your final power-point presentation (for poster or oral presentation) by May 15th.

“My students are my inspiration.” (Dr. Gisele Oliveira, March 15, 1971-March 31, 2016)

Dr. Oliveira received her bachelor’s, master’s and PhD in human communication disorders from the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and her postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  She was a professor and co-partner with Dr. Mara Behlau of the Graduate Specialization Program at “CEV – Center for Voice Studies”, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“Her smile was her trademark.” -Dr. Mara Behlau
After meeting her husband Gaetano Fava (also a speech-language pathologist) at The Voice Foundation Symposium in Philadelphia, she moved to the US and became an assistant professor and director of research in the master’s program in Speech-Language Pathology at Touro College, Brooklyn, NY.

“Dr. Oliveira inspired me in so many ways and changed my outlook on life.” -student

“Dr. Oliveira touched everyone’s life at Touro and will shine through in each of our careers.” -students

Dr. Oliveira has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, with over 60 papers, and 10 book chapters and books. She has presented papers extensively, including numerous invited presentations in North and South America, Europe and Asia at important conferences and meetings such as the Voice Foundation Annual Symposium, the World Voice Congress, and the IALP World Congress.

She was an editorial board member of the preeminent indexed scientific journal for voice, The Journal of Voice, as well as an editorial board member of two Brazilian indexed scientific speech journals, CoDAS and RSBFA.  Dr. Oliveira was a member of the IALP voice committee, representing both Brazil and the USA.

” We will miss her contagious positive energy and beautiful smile.” – Maria Russo and Katie Erikson, The Voice Foundation/Journal of Voice
Her main interests were clinical and professional voice, the impact of self-assessment on communication outcome, coping with voice disorders, multicultural aspects of communication, teaching, and teamwork.

Gisele is survived by her husband, 3 step-children, her parents,  brother, sister-in-law, and her maternal grandmother.
She loved God, her family, her profession, and her students.  She was a role model for many and she always put others first.

“Gi, você nos ensinou a guardar sempre o melhor das pessoas! Você é tão especial que guardamos você por inteira em nossos.” -colleague

If you would like to help fund this award, go to the page established by her husband, Gaetano Fava: Voice for Gisele