Duke undergraduates Nana Osaki and Allison Lee, both members of the Class of 2026, have been selected to participate in the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) PROmoting the next GENeration of Researchers (PROGENY) program.
The honor follows national recognition for their research poster, which received one of the highest scores among eligible undergraduate submissions reviewed by the ASHA Convention Program Committee. Their submission also earned the highest rating among conference submissions, resulting in their selection for the competitive mentorship program.
PROGENY supports promising undergraduate researchers by pairing them with faculty-researcher mentors and exposing them to career pathways in research and academia. Osaki and Lee will be matched with faculty-researcher partners this fall.
The recognition marks the second consecutive year that undergraduate neuroscience research mentees from Duke have received ASHA recognition for their scholarly work. The achievement is particularly notable because Osaki and Lee conduct research outside the traditional communication sciences and speech-language pathology curriculum.
Their selection highlights the impact of interdisciplinary research and the growing contributions of Duke undergraduates to advances in communication sciences and related fields.