Gretchen Gabbert-Downs, PhD, CCC-SLP

Dr. Gretchen Gabbert-Downs joined the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences as a core faculty member in 2023. She has been a speech-language pathologist for more than 20 years, working with children and adults with complex communication needs. Her experience includes administration and higher education roles, and teaching undergraduate courses in speech-language pathology.

Dr. Gabbert-Downs’ clinical work includes employment in public school as well as home health care serving geriatric patients. In home health care, she helped develop employee training on how to assess and treat patients with dementia and worked to define ways to facilitate interprofessional practice to achieve optimal care. She greatly enjoys working with the geriatric population providing assessment and treatment for patients with dysphagia and dementia.

Dr. Gabbert-Downs completed her undergraduate degree from the University of Incarnate Word. She earned her Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Texas at Dallas.

She has had works published on issues related to sensory-motor deficits in Parkinson’s disease. Research interests include interprofessional education and examining ways to strengthen online higher-learning education in speech-language pathology.