Member Spotlight – Joy Gaziano
Joy Gaziano is a native Floridian and has been a member of FLASHA since
1993. She lives in Tampa, FL with her husband, Michael and her two
children, Julia, age 5 and Nicholas, age 3. Joy is the Manager of Speech
Pathology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL. She has worked at
Moffitt for 13 years and has been the head of the speech pathology
department since 1996. Joy’s duties are both administrative and clinical.
She provides a wide range of patient care to address communication and
swallowing disorders in patients with head and neck cancer and neurological
disorders. Joy also provides evaluation (including videostroboscopy) and
treatment for patients with organic and functional voice disorders. One of
her clinical specialties is assessment and treatment for vocal cord
dysfunction. Recently, Joy received her certificate as a Board Recognized
Specialist in Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders from ASHA. She is
also affiliated with the University of South Florida. Joy serves as a
consultant for the Joyce Culverhouse Center for Swallowing Disorders at
College of Medicine and serves as an adjunct instructor for the Department
of communication Sciences and Disorders.
Joy has presented at the FLASHA Annual Convention and at the ASHA
convention many times over the past several years, providing continuing
education for speech pathology in the areas of voice, swallowing, and head
and neck cancer. She has also presented at the annual meeting for the
Florida Laryngectomee Association on several occasions. Joy has been the
coauthor in research publications in journals including: ASHA Magazine,
Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Head and Neck and Cancer
Control Journal. Joy also co-authored a chapter “Primary Brain Tumors” in
the text Swallowing Intervention in Oncology . Presently, Joy is gearing up
for a talk about electrolarynges at the Florida Laryngectomee Association
meeting in Oct. this year. Joy will also be participating in a dysphagia
presentation at ASHA this year and will be providing a poster presentation
about vocal cord dysfunction.
Joy graduated from The University of Florida with a B.A. in SpeechLanguage Pathology in 1986 and remains a loyal Gator fan! Upon
completion of her bachelor’s degree, Joy traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland
where she attended the University of Edinburgh. She earned a post graduate
diploma in Phonetics in 1987. Joy returned to the US and attended graduate
school at George Washington University in Washington, DC and received
her M.A. in speech pathology in 1988. Upon completion of her Master’s
degree, Joy began her career at South Miami Hospital in Miami, FL where
she met one of her first speech pathology mentors, Stacie Rubin Smith,
Director of Speech Pathology. Joy and her husband Michael left the Miami
area following Hurricane Andrew and Joy began working at Moffitt Cancer
Center. It was there that she met a second mentor, Paula Sullivan, who was
the Director of Speech Pathology at that time.
Joy is a leader in the “speech pathology world” and is a true asset to her
staff, her patients, and to FLASHA. Thanks for all that you do, Joy!