Aijiana Zanders, B.A. in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences with a minor in Linguistics is currently a 4th year doctoral student in the Audiology program at CU Boulder. In her clinical related experiences, she has worked with people of all ages with varying disabilities. In June 2017, she volunteered for the Special Olympics Healthy Hearing event where she encountered and worked with a variety of athletes with disabilities. She observed and received mentorship in monthly a clinic that specializes in diagnosing co-occurring issues in children who are deaf or hard of hearing at Children’s Hospital Colorado for one year. Aijiana participated in several JFK courses which strengthened her knowledge in the area of working with individuals with disabilities. During her LEND Fellowship, at JFK Partners, her goals were to participate in leadership activities, apply her Audiology knowledge and skills in clinical practice, and gain experience working with people from other disciplines to gain an interdisciplinary perspective in her clinical practice.
As an audiology LEND Fellow and Diversity Fellow, Aijiana completed a systems change project for the 2017-2018 academic year. Her final capstone project consisted of a poster that was presented at the annual Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) conference, which won an outstanding poster award. Her poster evaluated whether the characteristics of deaf/hard of hearing children with additional disabilities differ by race/ethnicity or other demographic factors. Currently, Aijiana is completing her 4th year doctoral externship at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Aijiana is excited about what her future has to hold.