Dr. Messick has been a member of the LEND Pittsburgh faculty since 2001 and became the co-Director of LEND Pittsburgh in 2016.  She is a Professor in the Department of Communication Science and Disorders in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh where she serves as the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs and teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels.  Her area of clinical expertise focuses on providing family-centered care to young children who have speech/language disorders with the goal of partnering with family members to facilitate the development of communication skills. Dr. Messick’s professional interests focus on applying multi-disciplinary evidence to clinical teaching; she conducts workshops nationally and internationally to promote the implementation of evidence-based practice in clinical education. She has served as a consultant to University programs nationally and internationally regarding methods for optimizing clinical education in speech-language pathology.  Dr. Messick is a Fellow of the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA).