Meet the professors

William R. Culbertson, Ph.D., is a Professor of Health Sciences at Northern Arizona University. He began teaching at NAU in 1980 but took a ten-year hiatus between 1982 and 1992 during which he was a clinical speech-language pathologist in private practice and a volunteer emergency medical technician.

Dr. Culbertson earned his B.A. in Psychology and Speech and Dramatic Arts from the University of Richmond in 1970, his Master of Science in Special Education with an emphasis in Communication Disorders from Old Dominion University in 1975, and his Ph.D. in Audiology and Speech Sciences from Michigan State University in 1981.

Trained as a speech-language pathologist, Dr. Culbertson has served as an educator and practitioner and in the public and private sectors and is co-author of several clinical assessment instruments for adults and children as well as other scholarly works--including an anatomy and physiology text and an anatomy and physiology workbook. His professional interests include neurogenic speech and language disorders, multicultural issues in treatment, phonology, and innovation in service and teaching delivery modalities.

Dr. Culbertson teaches and is the program coordinator for the Speech-Language Sciences and Technology (SST) program in the Department of Health Sciences and serves as advisor to the highly successful online Speech-Language Pathology Assistant Training Certificate program in the College of Health and Human Services. He has served on the NAU faculty senate, including executive positions as secretary, vice president, and president.

Kristan Culbertson began as a Lecturer in the Speech-Language Sciences and Technology program in 2005. Kristan earned her B.S. in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology from Northern Arizona University in 1991. She continued her studies at NAU, completing her Master of Science degree in Speech-Language Pathology in 1993.

Kristan has practiced as an SLP in a variety of settings. Those include brick-and-mortar public schools, teletherapy, and early intervention in the home. Her interests in the field as a teacher and as a therapist focus on the birth to 21 years of age population.

Primary Teaching Areas in the Department: Speech-Language Pathology Assistant (SLPA) certificate program and Speech-Language Sciences and Technology (SST) program.

Michelle Thomas is currently an instructor at Northern Arizona University in the Department of Health Sciences’ Speech Sciences and Technology (SST) program. She has a master’s degree in clinical speech pathology. She

have over 21 years experience in the assessment and treatment of children and adults with communication delays, disorders, and differences. Michelle began with her externship at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix where she worked with patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). From there, she went to rainy Seattle where she was employed in a skilled nursing facility and treated patients with dementia, stroke, and swallowing disorders. After she returned to Flagstaff to the private practice setting where she worked with children with significant developmental delays and disorders and traveled extensively on the Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations. She specializes in the school age population and comes from a “hands on” background with multiple case study examples to share with her students. Michelle has extensive clinical supervisory experience at the graduate level where she has mentored graduate students in speech pathology since 2001. She has also taught graduate level courses in communication development and multicultural issues. She is best known for my accent modification practice at The Literacy Volunteers of Coconino County where she served many in their English Language learning journeys. Most importantly, she is the proud mother of a child with a cleft lip and palate and has had the unique experience of witnessing the field of speech-language pathology (and related health fields) from a parent perspective.