Alexandra Z. Durfee, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Certifications and Licensure

• Licensed speech-language pathologist (MD)
• ASHA CCC-SLP

Memberships/Affiliations

• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
• Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences Right Hemisphere Damage Evidence-Based Writing Group
• International Right Hemisphere Collaborative
• Society for the Neurobiology of Language

Research

• Apragmatism (communication) recovery after right hemisphere stroke; Emotional aprosodia assessment and intervention
• Investigating typical and atypical (due to acquired brain injury) motoric, perceptual, emotional, and cognitive-linguistic contributions to affective (emotional) prosody recognition and production
• Investigating cognitive-linguistic recovery patterns following right hemisphere stroke
• Developing evidence-based aprosodia assessments and interventions post-acquired brain injury

Selected Publications (2021-current)

• Jackson, M.S.*, Uchida, Y., Sheppard, S.M. Oishi, K., Crainiceanu, C., Hillis, A.E., & Durfee, A.Z. (2025). Elucidating white matter contributions to the cognitive architecture of affective prosody recognition: Evidence from right hemisphere stroke. Brain Sciences, 15(7), 769.
• Meier, E.L., Bunker, L.D., Kim, H., Durfee, A.Z., Tilton-Bolowsky, V., Neal, V., & Hillis, A.E. (2025). The effect of protocol factors and participant characteristics on functional near-infrared spectroscopy data quality after stroke. NeuroImage: Reports, 5(3), 100276.
• Pfeiffer, D., Lankford, A., Durfee, A.Z., & Branson, C. (2025). ‘When to step in, when to take a step back’: A mixed-methods examination of interprofessional preschool virtual simulations for speech-language pathology and occupational therapy graduate students. Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders.
• Stockbridge, M.D., Venezia, J.H., Faria, A.V., Bunker, L.D., Durfee, A.Z., Kang, J., Neal, V., Vitti, E., Fridriksson, J., Hickok, G., & Hillis, A.E. (accepted). Acute temporal lesions are associated with phonological word verification errors. Brain Network Disorders.
• Keck, C., Lankford, A., Pfeiffer, D., Durfee, A.Z., & Guilfoyle, R. (2025). Speech-language pathology and occupational therapy students’ perceptions of an interprofessional stroke workshop: A mixed methods analysis. Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders, 9(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.61403/2689-6443.1349
• Borod, J.C., Stafford, R.J., Durfee, A.Z., Twaite, J.T., Scorpio, K.A., Pick, L.H., Meltzer, E.P., Murray, E.M., & Schmidt, M. (2025). Aprosodia. Medlink Neurology.
• Jewell, C.J., Diedrichs, V.A., Schwen Blackett, D., Durfee, A.Z., & Harnish, S.M. (2024). Comparative effectiveness of in-person and virtual picture naming treatment for post-stroke anomia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1-13.
• Durfee, A.Z. (2024). Post-stroke language impairments. Invited editorial on the neurobehavioral consequences of stroke by Neurotorium (Lundbek Foundation). https://neurotorium.org/post_stroke_language_impairments/
• Fan, H., Bunker, L., Durfee, A.Z., Lin, D.D.M., Yedavalli, V., Ge, Y., Zhou, X.J., Hillis, A.E., Lu, H. (2023). Simultaneous perfusion, diffusion, and relaxometry (T2* and T1) mapping with MR fingerprinting (MRF-PDR). Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 91(2), 558-569.
• Durfee, A. Z. & Hillis, A. E. (2023). Unilateral spatial neglect recovery post-stroke. Stroke, 54(1), 10-19. Invited review.
• Durfee, A. Z. & Hanish, S. M. (2022). Using Word-Picture Verification to Inform Language Impairment Locus in Chronic Post-Stroke Aphasia. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences, 3. doi:10.3389/fresc.2022.1012588 Invited paper.
• Minga, J., Stockbridge, M. D., Durfee, A. Z., & Johnson, M. (2022). Clinical guidelines for eliciting discourse using the RHDBank Protocol. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 31(5), 1949-1962.
• Berube, S., Goldberg, E., Sheppard, S. M., Durfee, A. Z., Ubellacker, D., Walker, A., Stein, C. M., & Hillis. A. E. (2022). An analysis of right hemisphere stroke discourse in the modern cookie theft picture. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 31(5S), 2301-2312.
• Diedrichs, V. A., Lundine, J. P., Schwen Blackett, D., Durfee, A. Z., Pan, X. J., & Harnish, S. M. (2022). A randomized crossover single-case series comparing blocked versus random treatment for anomia. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation. AHEAD-OF-PRINT, 1-28. PMID: 35287561
• Durfee, A. Z., Sheppard, S. M., Blake, M. T., & Hillis, A. E. (2021). Lesion loci of impaired affective prosody: A systematic review of evidence from stroke. Brain and Cognition, 152¸105759.
• Durfee, A. Z., Sheppard, S. M., Meier, E. L., Bunker, L., Cui, E., Crainiceanu, C., & Hillis, A. E. (2021). Explicit affective prosody recognition training in acute right hemisphere stroke. Brain Sciences, 11(5), 667 (invited paper). doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11050667
• Sheppard, S. M., Meier, E. L., Durfee, A. Z., Walker, A., Shea, J., & Hillis A. E. (2021). Characterizing subtypes and neural correlates of receptive aprosodia in acute right hemisphere stroke. Cortex, 141, 36-54.

Selected Presentations (2023-current)

• Durfee, A.Z., Sheppard, S.M., & Hillis, A.E. (2025, July). Comparing past and present affective aprosodia taxonomies to improve communication rehabilitation after right hemisphere stroke. Abstract accepted for symposium presentation at the 10th Conference of the Consortium of European Research on Emotion. Grenoble, France.
• Hewetson, R., Johnson, M., Greenwald, M., Ferré, P., Murray, L., Durfee, A.Z., Love, A., Blake, M. (2025, July). Description of neglect dyslexia error patterns from a lexical/semantic content-specific impairment stance. Abstracted accepted for presentation at the 7th Pacific Rim Conference: Brisbane, Australia.
• Ferré, P., Blake, M., Hewetson, R., Johnson, M., Minga, J., Murray, L., Stockbridge, M., & ANCDS RHDWG. (2025, March). Half a century of insight: A systematic review of language and pragmatic deficits in right hemisphere brain damage (1970-2024). Abstract accepted for poster presentation at the 15th World Congress on Brain Injury, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
• Johnson, M., Blake, M.Y., Sheppard, S.M., Durfee, A.Z., Murray, L., Hewetson, R., Minga, J., Cornwell, P., & Ferre, P. (2024, December). Right Hemisphere Brain Damage: Advances in knowledge and practice. Invited master course presentation accepted at the Annual American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Seattle, WA.
• Keck, C., King, S., & Durfee, A.Z. (2024, December). Let’s get real: Using standardized patients to simulate interprofessional collaborations. Technical talk accepted for presentation at the Annual American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Seattle, WA.
• Sheppard, S.M., Cornwell, P., Durfee, A.Z., Johnson, M., Ferre, P., Murray, L., Blake, M.L., Minga, J., & Hewetson, R. (2024, November) Neural correlates of linguistic and pragmatic deficits in right hemisphere stroke: A systematic review. Abstract accepted to the annual meeting of the Academy for Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences. Virtual.
• Meier, E.L., Bunker, L.D., Kim, H., Durfee, A.Z., Tilton-Bolowsky, V., & Hillis, A.E. (2024, October). The effect of language task type and participant factors on functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy data quality from left and right hemisphere stroke survivors. Abstract accepted to the annual meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language.
• Sheppard, S.M., Cler, G., Patel, S., Ahn, J.S., Keator, L., Diaz-Carr, I., Hillis, A.E., & Durfee, A.Z.* (2024, October). Cueing improves expressive emotional aprosodia in acute right hemisphere stroke: Investigating neural and acoustic characteristics. Abstract accepted as a presentation to the annual meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, Brisbane, Australia. *Denotes senior authorship
• Murray, L., Hewetson, R., Blake, M.L., Cornwell, P., Durfee, A.Z., Ferre, P., Johnson, M., Minga, J., & Sheppard, S.M. (2024, October). A historic trend in analysis of research pertaining to language and pragmatic after right hemisphere damage: Are we moving in the “right” direction? Presentation accepted to the Academy of Aphasia, Nara, Japan.
• Jewell, C. C., Diedrichs, V. A., Blackett, D. S., Durfee, A. Z., & Harnish, S. M. (2024, July). Efficacy of telerehabilitation for anomia in people with aphasia. Abstract accepted as platform presentation at the International Aphasia Rehabilitation Conference, Brisbane, Australia.
• Sheppard, S.M., Cornwell, P., Durfee, A.Z., Johnson, M., Ferre, P., Murray, L., Hewetson, R., Blake, M.T., & Minga, J. (2024, May). Lesion loci of impaired language and pragmatics in right hemisphere stroke. Abstract accepted as a poster presentation at the Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Waikoloa Beach, HI.
• Murray, L., Hewetson, R., Blake, M.T., Cornwell, P., Durfee, A.Z., Johnson, M., Minga, J., Ferre, P., & Sheppard, S.M. (2024, May). Historic Trends Within a Systematic Review of Language and Pragmatics After Right Hemisphere Brain Damage: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Abstract accepted as a roundtable presentation at the Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Waikoloa Beach, HI.
• Blake, M.T., Cornwell, P., Minga, J., Sheppard, S.M., Johnson, M., & Durfee, A.Z. (2024, February). Apragmatism: Communication disorders associated with right hemisphere brain damage. Abstract accepted to the annual Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association meeting, Fort Worth, TX.
• Tilton-Bolowsky, V., Durfee, A. Z., Bunker, L. D., & Hillis, A. E. (2024, February). Emotional prosody and facial expressions differentially augment comprehension of discourse for left and right hemisphere stroke survivors. Abstract accepted to the Annual International Stroke Conference, Phoenix, AZ.
• Johnson, M., Blake, M., Cornwell, P., Durfee, A.Z., Ferre, P., Hewetson, R., Minga, J., Murray, L., Sheppard, S.M., & Stockbridge, M.D. (January, 2024). Language and pragmatic deficits in right hemisphere brain damage: A systematic review. Abstract accepted to the International Cognitive-Communication Disorders Conference, Orange, CA.
• Keck, C., Guilfoyle, R., Pfeiffer, D., Lankford, A., Jozkowski, A., & Durfee, A. (2023, December). I experience[d] the value of collaboration”: IPE Stroke Training for Graduate OT and SLP Students. Invited oral presentation (30 min) presented virtually at the University of Santo Tomas’ Collaborate4Advocacy: International IPE Student Day in Manila, Philippines.
• Durfee, A.Z., McCauley, J., & Buzzard, C. (2023, November). Speech-language intervention for emotional aprosodia following anoxic brain injury. Technical research presentation at the Annual American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Boston, MA.
• Bunker, L. D., Meier, E. E., Kim, H., Durfee, A. Z., & Hillis, A. E. (2023, October). Changes in activation and functional connectivity in subacute aphasia following treatment: An fNIRS case series investigation. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Aphasia, Reading, UK.
• Durfee, A. Z. (2023, September). When your wife is now a hat: Post-stroke agnosias. Invited speaker at Neurotorium expert meeting on neurobehavioral consequences of stroke. Gothenburg, Sweden.
• *Jackson, M. S., Durfee, A. Z., Uchida, Y., Oishi, K., Sheppard, S. M., & Hillis, A. E. (2023, July). White matter damage after right hemisphere stroke and its effects on receptive prosody. Poster presented at the annual Human Brain Mapping Conference, Montreal, CA. *Denotes student mentee
• *Diaz-Carr, I., Durfee, A. Z., Ahn, J., Patel, S., Hillis, A. E., & Sheppard, S. M. (2023, May). Neural correlates of expressive prosody following acute right hemisphere stroke. Poster presented at the annual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Atlantic City, NJ. *Denotes student mentee
• Durfee, A.Z., Minga, J., Sheppard, S. M., Johnson, M., Hewetson, R., Cornwell, P., & Blake, M. L. (2023, May). Apragmatism: A diagnostic label for right hemisphere communication deficits. Roundtable discussion conducted at the annual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Atlantic City, NJ.
• Durfee, A.Z. & Hillis A.E. (2023, February). Unilateral spatial neglect recovery post-stroke. Platform presented at the International Stroke Conference, Dallas, TX. Invited talk.

Professional Service

• Ad hoc reviewer: Stroke, Journal of Communication Disorders, Brain, Annals of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Medicine, ASHA Perspectives, Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Grants and Contracts

• Towson University Faculty Development & Research Committee Grant, 2024