American Academy of Audiology (AAA) members have elected Bettie B. Borton, AuD, as president-elect, effective July 1. Borton, who is CEO of Doctors Hearing Clinic in Montgomery, AL, and co-owner/director of Borton Audiology Consultants, will serve a year in that position, and then succeed Deborah Carlson, PhD, as president of the academy for 2013-2014.
The academy also announced the election of three new members-at-large of its board of governors: Patricia A. Gaffney, AuD, director of the United Kingdom AuD Program of Nova Southeastern University; Richard A. Roberts, PhD, owner/director of Vestibular Services at Alabama Hearing & Balance Associates, in Foley, AL; and Jennifer B. Shinn, PhD, chief of audiology and associate professor, Department of Otolaryngology, University of Kentucky.
Borton, who was elected to the AAA board in 2010, received her master’s in audiology from LSU Medical Center in 1976 and her doctorate from the University of Florida in 2000. She also holds a BS in education of the deaf from the University of Texas. Among her areas of special interest are practice management, aural rehabilitation, and amplification.
Before entering private practice in 1998, she held positions in academia, including being supervising clinical audiologist at Auburn University and a clinical audiologist in the Department of Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has also been a trainer for Siemens Hearing Instruments.
Borton, the first Alabamian to server as a governor of AAA, was a charter member and former president of the Alabama Academy of Audiology. She has served on many AAA committees and was national chair of the American Board of Audiology in 2008. She was appointed in 2007 by the governor of Alabama to that state’s Health and Sciences Curriculum Task Force.
The incoming president-elect was an Oticon Focus on People Award recipient in 2010 and was nominated for The Hearing Review’s Best of Hearing Healthcare Professionals program in 2011.
NEW GOVERNORS
Richard Roberts, the second AAA governor from Alabama, has been very active in that organization, including serving as program chair in 2010-2011 for AudiologyNOW! After graduating from the University of South Alabama in 1992, he also earned his master’s and doctoral degree from that institution.
AAA’s other new governors-elect are both among the youngest to be elected to the board.
A 1998 graduate of the University of Vermont, Jennifer Shinn earned her PhD in audiology from the University of Connecticut in 2005. Her activities with AAA include serving as featured session chair for AudiologyNOW! 2012.
Patricia Gaffney received her BA in speech and hearing science from the George Washington University in 2001 before getting her AuD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2005. She was national secretary of the National Association of Future Doctors of Audiology and was selected for the 2010 Future Leaders of Audiology Conference.
For more on the election, visit the AAA web site.
