Career Achievement Award

2023 Recipient:

Travis T. Threats '82

Travis T. Threats, Ph.D. is a professor and chair of the Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences. He teaches courses concerning acquired neurogenic communication disorders. His primary scholarly work has been with the World Health Organization, WHO, on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, ICF. He has been the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association representative liaison to the WHO since 1999 and was the primary contributor to the communication, hearing, and swallowing sections of the ICF. Threats was the primary contributor concerning communication disorders for the 2011 World Health Organization publication, World Report on Disability. He was also a consultant on the WHO’s latest update of the International Classification of Diseases.

A published author and internationally known researcher, Threats has been an invited speaker more than 25 times for international conferences, speaking on his other scholarly interests: spirituality/religiosity in rehabilitation, evidence-based practice and rehabilitation ethics. He has presented in Chile, Greece, Portugal, the Philippines, Slovenia, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. He also served as a consultant to the United Arab Emirates for the establishment of their first speech-language pathology program in the country.

Threats is an American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Fellow and the ASHA 2012 recipient of the Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contributions in International Achievement. He is also a Distinguished Scholar and Fellow for the National Academies of Practice, a non-profit organization that advocates for interdisciplinary research, practice and public health policy.

He was honored to be named Distinguished Alumnus by the K-State Communication Sciences and Disorders program in 2022. Also in 2022, he was awarded Honors of the Association by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Honors is the highest award this organization gives, recognizing scholars whose contributions have been of such excellence that they have enhanced or altered the course of the professions.

Threats received his bachelor’s degree in speech pathology and Audiology from K-State in 1982.