Education Dr. Marianna Walker awarded endowed professorship

Dr. Marianna Walker has been named recipient of the Barbara W. Bremer Distinguished Professorship in Language Learning and Literacy Disorders in East Carolina University's Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. It is the first endowed professorship in the College of Allied Health Sciences.

Walker is an associate professor in the ECU Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, where she has been a faculty member for 20 years. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in speech language and auditory pathology from ECU and her doctoral degree in literacy and language from North Carolina State University. A 1974 graduate of Salisbury High School, she is the daughter of the late Marion R. Morris and Joanna Sink Morris Cantrell and the stepdaughter of Jake Cantrell of Salisbury.

She serves on the North Carolina Board of Examiners for Speech & Language Pathologists and Audiologists and is a Fellow of the American Speech Hearing and Language Association. Her research interests include child language and literacy disorders, language learning disabilities and language and reading sciences.

As the Bremer professor, Walker will serve a three-year term. She will promote interdisciplinary teaching between ECU's Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education and the Brody School of Medicine. Objectives include education, research, service and mentorship.

Barbara Bremer, a speech language pathologist, and Dr. Chris Bremer, professor emeritus of family medicine in the Brody School of Medicine, established the professorship to focus on research and education concerning school-aged language learning and literacy disorders and how they are related.