ECU Student Awarded Grant

A pair of East Carolina University students received prestigious National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Service Research awards for their research initiatives.

Third-year doctoral student Katelyn Kotlarek was also awarded a F31 fellowship from the NIH this spring. Kotlarek, a member of Jamie Perry’s Speech Imagining Laboratory at ECU, is pursuing her doctorate in communication sciences and disorders.

The NIH states that the purpose of the Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Service Research Award is to “enable promising predoctoral students with potential to develop into productive, independent research scientists to obtain mentored research training while conducting dissertation research.”

Kotlarek’s research focuses on understanding the structural changes that affect the soft palate during cleft palate repair.

Her project “Investigation of Anatomical and Physiological Changes Following the Use of a Pedicled Buccal Fat Pad Graft During Primary Palatoplasty” aims to use magnetic resonance imaging to describe the functional effects to the velopharyngeal portal – the area between the nasal cavity and mouth – caused by a pedicled buccal fat pad graft used during primary repair of cleft palate. The present study will determine whether the technique creates a more favorable velopharyngeal system for speech production over traditional cleft repair techniques, subsequently reducing overall medical costs and improving quality of life and overall clinical care in this population.

Her grant is also a two-year award totaling $33,666. The grant was award by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.