People

Dr. Jonathan Preston, Speech Production Laboratory Director

Professor,  Syracuse University Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders

Office Phone: 315.443.3143   /  E-mail: jopresto@syr.edu

Dr. Preston is a certified speech-language pathologist.  He completed his PhD at Syracuse University in 2008. He also completed postdoctoral training at  Haskins Laboratories, where he retains a research affiliation. Go to Jonathan Preston’s Faculty Page.

Megan Leece, Research Speech Language Pathologist

Office Phone: 315.443.1351 / E-mail: mcleece@syr.edu

Megan Leece is a certified speech-language pathologist who works in the laboratory on various research projects. Visit Megan’s profile.

Dr. Nina R. Benway 

E-mail: nrbenway@syr.edu

Nina is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist who completed a PhD in 2023.  Her interests are in assessment and treatment of school-age children with speech sound disorders, including twice exceptional children. Visit Nina’s profile.

Nicole Caballero, PhD student

E-mail: nfcaball@syr.edu

Nicole is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist. She conducts assessments and treatment with children with speech sound disorders as part of our research, and she is pursuing a PhD part-time. She also works in the Gebbie Speech-Language Clinic.

Benedette (Benny) Herbst, PhD student

E-mail: bmherbst@syr.edu

Benedette is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist and PhD student. Her interests are in childhood speech sound disorders, including childhood apraxia of speech.

Dr. Molly Beiting, postdoctoral scholar

Email: mabeitin@syr.edu

Dr. Beiting is a certified speech-language pathologist and researcher with interests in speech sound disorders, particularly the assessment and treatment of children with complex communication profiles. Molly completed her PhD at Temple University in 2022.

Kerry McNamara, PhD student

Email: kmcnamar@syr.edu

Kerry is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist and PhD student. Her interests are in helping young children with characteristics of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) develop intelligible speech and meaningful communication, while collaborating closely with families and other service providers.

Veera Vasandani, SLP 

Email: vsvasand@syr.edu

Veera is a certified Speech-Language Pathologist. She is currently working at Minneapolis (MN) Public Schools, where her interests are in speech sound disorders, with a particular emphasis on their impact on literacy development.

Samantha Fiorante, SLP

Email: sjfioran@syr.edu

Samantha is a certified Speech-Language Pathologist who works as a research clinician at Syracuse University.  She provides assessments and therapy for children as part of ongoing studies for both the Speech Production Lab and the Stuttering Research Lab (V. Tumanova, director).

Current Lab Personnel

Former Lab Members